<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>A Desperate Gambit by Rollercoasterwords</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146810">A Desperate Gambit</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rollercoasterwords/pseuds/Rollercoasterwords'>Rollercoasterwords</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Laurent's Perspective [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Complete, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:28:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>96,035</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146810</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rollercoasterwords/pseuds/Rollercoasterwords</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince's Gambit from Laurent's Perspective--chapter by chapter, same as the first book.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Laurent's Perspective [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2048732</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>295</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warning for references to sexual abuse — nothing specific, just some general bad memories about Chastillon</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The shadows were long with sunset when they rode up, and the horizon was red. Chastillon was a single jutting tower, a dark round bulk against the sky. It was huge and old, like the castles far to the south, Ravenel and Fortaine, built to withstand battering siege. Laurent gazed at it, pulse quickening. Every line of the fort was burned into his memory, though he had not ridden to Chastillon since he was fourteen. The castellan and his staff thought the young prince had simply lost his taste for the runs as he grew older. Not a single man riding with Laurent could even begin to understand how just seeing the fort was enough to make his stomach turn.</p><p>It had been a day’s ride, through pleasant countryside in late spring, following the slow pace of the wagons. Govart did very little but sit, an impersonal shape above the swishing tail of his muscled horse, but the Prince’s guard needed little direction to maintain order. Laurent had seen to it, in the years they’d served him, that they were drilled to maintain immaculate formation over the long course of a ride. Since his nineteenth birthday, the training had only grown stricter—Laurent had known, perhaps for a while, that these men would be his first line of defense against the Regent.</p><p>The household servants had turned out to meet them, arraying themselves as they would for the arrival of any significant party. The Regent’s men, who were supposedly stationed at Chastillon awaiting the Prince’s arrival, were nowhere to be seen—but then, Laurent would have been more surprised if they had actually been waiting and prepared.</p><p>They were fifty horses to be stabled, fifty sets of armor and tack to be unstrapped, and fifty places to be readied in the barracks—and that was only the men at arms, not the servants and wagons. But in the enormous courtyard, Laurent’s party looked small, insignificant. Chastillon was large enough to swallow fifty men as though the number was nothing.</p><p>No one was pitching tents, at least: the men would sleep in the barracks; Laurent’s room would be in the keep.</p><p>Laurent swung out of his saddle, battling nausea at the familiar tableau. How many times had he ridden to Chastillon, and greeted the servants, arrayed just like this? He could feel the ghost of his uncle at his side, the echo of so many pasts. He peeled off his riding gloves, tucking them into his belt, and concentrated his attention on the castellan. Behind him, Govart barked a few orders. The men began to occupy themselves with unloading and readying supplies, checking over stores and horses and armor.</p><p>As he listened to the castellan, Laurent cast his eyes about the courtyard. His men were working, diligently, uncomplaining. Govart had disappeared, but that was to be expected. The Regent’s men were still nowhere to be found and were certainly offering no help with the preparations—also expected. Laurent frowned as he saw Damen, off to one side. He was sitting a few paces removed from the other men, checking meticulously over his armor. The gold collar glinted in the orange light of the setting sun. Laurent called for Paschal, the company’s only physician.</p><p>“Your Highness,” said Paschal. He was a man past his prime, with graying hair, but kept himself in fit shape to ride out at a moment’s notice, and therefore did not appear to be too put out by the day’s endeavors. He had served at Marlas. After the prince’s death he had become the Regent's physician, but after some time spent patching up the boys that were sent to him, dazed and bleeding, had chosen to place himself in Laurent’s company rather than the Regent’s. For this alone, Laurent respected the man.</p><p>“See to the slave’s back,” Laurent said airily, nodding to where Damen sat, “If he’s difficult, tell him the better it heals, the less it will trouble him with stiffness, so that he will be better able to swing a sword around, killing a great many people. I need him fit to fight.”</p><p>“Of course, Your Highness,” Paschal said, eyes twinkling with humor. Laurent dismissed him, turning his attention back to the castellan.</p><p>Across the courtyard, a couple of alaunt hounds came bounding down the stone stairs to throw themselves ecstatically at Laurent, whose throat felt tight. He remembered naming the dogs as puppies, when he was a young boy—Yenne and Rabbit. <em>Rabbit? </em>Auguste had laughed, incredulously, <em>You can’t name a dog rabbit! He’s meant to hunt hare—how do you think he’ll feel, killing his namesake? </em>But Laurent had folded his little arms and insisted, obstinately, that he had been given the job of naming them, and not Auguste. His older brother had finally acquiesced, with a bemused smile.</p><p>This reminder of his brother sent a pang through Laurent's chest; he leaned down to scratch Rabbit once, indulgently, before turning his attention firmly elsewhere. He could see clearly that almost nothing had been done to prepare for their ride the next morning. Still, he gave clear orders that the company would not be riding out without a full arsenal, and they would not be delaying departure. The bulk of the work, he knew, would be left to his men—but they would bear it. For now.</p><p>The castellan led him inside the keep, where he was given a report on the men that the Regent had sent ahead: numbering one hundred and fifty, they appeared to be a cobbled-together rabble of mercenaries and stray soldiers—although, of course, the castellan hedged around stating this opinion quite so plainly.</p><p>The report only confirmed what Laurent already knew. It had been clear from the beginning, how things were going to be on this campaign: the Regent’s men in ascendancy. Laurent’s men would be targets, because they would have no one to complain to except Govart, who would slap them back down. Govart, the Regent’s favorite thug, brought here to keep the Prince’s men in check. The only piece that didn’t quite fit into the equation was Damen. As the prince’s pet, he would have a direct line of report to Laurent. Which was, of course, deliberate.</p><p>Laurent’s thoughts were interrupted as the castellan presented, with a flourish, his room. Except it wasn’t, really, <em>his</em> room. His heart pounded as he surveyed the familiar, thick hewn stone walls, the frosted glass windows, criss-crossed with lattice. He recognized the frieze of twining vine leaves that ran around the bedchamber, the carved mantle above the fire, the lamps, the wall hangings, the heavy opulence of the bed.</p><p>The walls around the bed were panelled in dark, carved wood, depicting a hunting scene in which a boar was held at the end of a spear, pierced through the neck. The draperies were blood red. A sudden burst of anger pulsed through Laurent—he should have realized that, as the ranking member of the company, he would be kept in the best suite. He should have prepared for this. He <em>knew </em>he was riding to Chastillon—what did he expect? Yet every nerve in his body was on edge, repulsed; these were his uncle’s rooms.</p><p>The castellan was leaving. Laurent heard, as if from a distance, the man say that he could bathe, relax, and retire, as a young lord typically would after a day’s ride. But as the door shut behind him, Laurent found that he was unable to take a single step further into the room.</p><p><em>He brought Nicaise here, </em>he thought, numbly, <em>just a few weeks ago. </em>He could see, as clearly as if he were watching it now, how it would have happened. The pitcher of wine, there, on that table. Nicaise’s small body, painted and prettied and perfumed. The drink would course with more strength through a boy’s veins than a man’s; it would take only a few glasses to leave him limp on the bed, soft and vulnerable and open. <em>He would look up at the boar, while it happened, </em>thought Laurent. He had only to close his own eyes and nudge slightly at the memory, to see the picture recreated in perfect detail in his mind’s eye: the point of the spear, the burst of blood from the animal’s neck, the soft curve of the forest’s leaves.</p><p>Laurent forced himself to remain, standing, on the threshold, knowing that this was exactly what his uncle intended in forcing him to stop first at Chastillon before riding south. This feeling—and the ability to obscure the quality of men he had selected for his nephew to ride with from the eyes of the court. Laurent still had Nicaise’s earring, tucked into his riding clothes.</p><p>He allowed himself to feel it all. Every memory, every barbed twist of his heart, all the sticky nausea that churned in his gut. He was a thousand snakes, all in one person, all hissing and spitting venom and writhing under his skin. He allowed it, for a few moments.</p><p>And then he suppressed it, carefully, like a man caging a flame in the glass of a lamp. His uncle was a cold, bloodless creature, and so he must be too, to face him. The wildfire of rage that leapt inside him had only ever driven him to error. There was no room, now, for mistakes.</p><p>***</p><p>Govart was still missing when Laurent left the keep, so he called for Jord. One of the senior officers of the Prince’s Guard, Jord was a good-natured, hardworking man, and he had taken on the role of organizing the company, as best as he could, in their preparations for the long ride that awaited them. From him, Laurent learned that his men had taken inventory and begun the task of preparing arms, armor and wagons for their departure the following morning. It was work that should have been done before their arrival, by the Regent’s men. But of the hundred and fifty Regent’s men set to ride out with the Prince, fewer than two dozen had turned out to help them.</p><p>He learned also, from Jord, that tensions were already running high: there had been a fight in the armory. Aimeric, provoked by the Regent’s men, had succeeded only in getting his nose bloodied. Laurent discovered, with mild surprise, that the altercation had been halted by Damen.</p><p>It was nothing more than Laurent had expected, of course. Tension would escalate between the two factions—there would be fighting and retaliation, encouraged, no doubt, by their partisan captain. Laurent could see, immediately, that his first order of business would have to be sorting out Govart: until that was done, any effort to discipline the men would fail.</p><p>When Laurent inquired as to his captain’s whereabouts, he was informed by Jord, sourly, that he had disappeared into the stables and had not yet emerged.</p><p>Laurent smiled, a bit cruelly, and said, “I need to speak to him. Send the slave to fetch him.” It was the only course of action that made sense; as captain, Govart would not be bound to listen to any of the men under him. And the prince could not very well go traipsing into the stables to pull his captain away from fucking—above all else, he would need the respect of his men. Damen, then, was the only man in the company with any chance of interrupting Govart’s tryst. And if Laurent took some small pleasure in assigning him the unfavorable task—well, he could hardly be faulted for that.</p><p>As he waited for Govart at the barracks, he considered his situation. He would need to walk a very fine line, to gain the respect of these men, and he would need their respect in order to mold them into a cohesive unit. A slack grip for the beginning of the ride, Laurent thought, to ensure that every man in the company was fully aware of Govart’s incompetence. Then, once tension had reached its peak, Laurent would need to step in and discipline the captain with a firm enough hand to ensure that further incompetence was not tolerated amongst the men.</p><p>Laurent frowned, turning this plan over in his mind. It was unlikely that any form of discipline would lead Govart to change his behavior—not with his mysterious confidence in the Regent’s protection. No, he would have to be run off from the company entirely. Goaded to some extreme action, publicly, where a sufficient range of witnesses could attest to the justice administered—this was the only course of action that might allow Laurent to save the company. It would be a very, very fine line, with no room for miscalculation.</p><p>As he thought, Laurent cast his gaze idly across the courtyard. There was a young girl, perhaps the daughter of one of the servants, playing with the hounds. She held a treat in her hands, a scrap of meat from the kitchens, and giggled as they snapped playfully at her. Again and again, she withdrew her fingers at the last second, so that the hounds became more frenzied as they lunged for the morsel. Laurent watched them, barking and drooling. A slow, thoughtful smile spread across his face.</p><p>***</p><p>After his meeting with Govart, which was as unpleasant as he had expected it to be, Laurent did not eat in his chambers. Instead, servants brought food to the long, empty dining table of Chastillon. As Laurent ate, he studied a series of maps that he had spread across the table. After, he met again with Jord, and reviewed the inventory; he walked through the barracks and the keep, surveying the men. He stopped by the stables to check on his horse, then spent some time looking over his own armor, although a servant assured him these tasks had already been done. Finally, when he could put it off no longer, he returned to the keep.</p><p>Orlant was posted at the door. When Laurent entered, Damen was already there.</p><p>“You can go,” Laurent said, “I don’t need a guard on the door.”</p><p>Orlant nodded. The door closed.</p><p>It was incongruous, to see him here. Like two separate, jagged pieces of Laurent’s past, pressed painfully together. He had risen from his seat and now shifted uncomfortably, as though he felt as out of place as he looked.</p><p>Laurent said, “I have saved you till last.”</p><p>Damen said, “You owe the stableboy a copper sol.”</p><p>“The stableboy should learn to demand payment before he bends over.”</p><p>Laurent displayed no outward sign of the emotion that was twisting, once more, within him. He calmly helped himself to goblet and pitcher, filling his goblet with water. The servants had all been instructed of his distaste for wine.</p><p>As he set the pitcher down, he saw Damen’s eyes dart apprehensively to the drink. Laurent’s brows arched just a fraction. “Your virtue’s safe. It’s just water. Probably.” He took a sip, then lowered the goblet, holding it loosely with the tips of his fingers. Damen was still standing, so he glanced pointedly at the chair, as a host might offering a seat, and said, with dry amusement, “Make yourself comfortable. You are going to stay the night.”</p><p>“No restraints?” said Damen, as if he couldn’t quite believe it, “You don’t think I’ll try to leave, pausing only to kill you on the way out?”</p><p>Laurent matched his flippant tone. “Not until we get closer to the border.”</p><p>He returned Damen’s gaze evenly. There was no sound but the crack and pop of the banked fire.</p><p>“You really do have ice in your veins, don’t you,” said Damen.</p><p>Ever contrary, Laurent’s entire body felt like it was burning. He could see the bed behind Damen—he knew exactly how the silk blankets felt, against his skin. <em>We don't have time for this.</em> It took everything he had to keep his hand steady as he placed the goblet carefully back on the table, and picked up the knife that had been left behind by the servants.</p><p>It was a sharp knife, made for cutting meat. There was a flash of something that was not quite fear in Damen’s eyes—apprehension, maybe, or excitement—as Laurent came forward, which was quickly replaced by shock as Laurent’s fingers touched his, pressing the hilt of the knife into his hand. Laurent took hold of Damen’s wrist below the gold cuff, firmed his grip, and drew the knife forward so that it was angled towards his own stomach. The tip of the blade pressed slightly into the dark blue of his prince’s garment. The proximity made his skin crawl—there were too many memories in this room, of another body, hot, pressed close—but he held his ground.</p><p>“You heard me tell Orlant to leave,” said Laurent.</p><p>He slid his grip down from wrist to fingers, tightening Damen’s hold on the blade.</p><p>Laurent said, “I am not going to waste time on posturing and threats. Why don’t we clear up any uncertainty about your intentions?”</p><p>It was well placed, just below the rib cage. All Damen would have to do was push in, then angle up.</p><p>He could see, in the dark curtain that fell behind Damen’s eyes, how badly he wanted to do it. It was the same look he’d had when bracing himself to fight Govart in the ring—the same tension exhibited in his body as when he’d turned to fight the Regent’s assassins. Some part of him enjoyed the release of violence, the physicality and simplicity of it. Laurent knew, because he had felt the same way watching the lash fall across Damen’s back.</p><p>He said: “I’m sure there are house servants still awake. How do I know you won’t scream?”</p><p>“Do I seem like the type to scream?”</p><p>“I’m not going to use the knife,” said Damen, “but if you’re willing to put it in my hand, you underestimate how much I want to.”</p><p>Laurent thought of the tent at Marlas, the flashing eyes under the helm, the fall of the whip against already bloodied skin. “No,” he said coldly, “I know exactly what it is to want to kill a man, and to wait.”</p><p>Damen stepped back and lowered the knife. His knuckles remained tight around it. They gazed at one another.</p><p>Laurent said, “When this campaign is over, I think—if you are a man and not a worm—you will attempt to gain retribution for what has happened to you. I expect it. On that day, we roll the dice and see how they fall. Until then, you serve me. Let me therefore make one thing above all clear to you: I expect your obedience. You are under my command. If you object to what you are told to do I will hear reasoned arguments in private, but if you disobey an order once it is made, I will send you back to the flogging post.”</p><p>“Have I disobeyed an order?” said Damen. His voice was rough. His hand still gripped the knife.</p><p>Laurent’s eyes moved over his face, searching. “No,” he said, “You have dragged Govart out of the stables to do his duty, and rescued Aimeric from a fight.”</p><p>Damen said, “You have every other man working until dawn to prepare for tomorrow’s departure. What am I doing here?” Almost indignantly, as if offended that Laurent had denied him work.</p><p>Another pause, and then Laurent indicated once again to the chair. This time Damen followed the prompt and sat. Laurent took the chair opposite. Between them, unfurled on the table, was all the intricate detail of a map.</p><p>“You said you knew the territory,” Laurent said.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Damen hesitated, at first, sizing up Laurent with a wary eye. He appeared to be submitting himself to a series of complicated mental gymnastics in order to justify what he was about to do. Clearly, for all his great speeches about trust, he still could not shake whatever gut reaction told him the Veretian prince was an enemy.</p><p>Laurent raised an eyebrow. “You have some objection?”</p><p>Damen drew in a deep breath, as if steadying himself for what he was about to do. It might have been insulting, if Laurent had not experienced the exact same feelings of internal rebellion when considering sitting down across a table with an Akielon to talk strategy. After a moment, Damen began to speak, slowly and carefully.</p><p>They sat across the map until late in the night, when the fire burned low and warm-embered in the hearth. They talked about the terrain on the border and about the route they would travel to get there. They would not be riding in a straight line south. Instead, it was to be a two-week journey southwest through the Veretian provinces of Varenne and Alier, their route hugging the Vaskian mountain border. It was a change from the direct route that had been planned by the Regent, and Laurent had already sent out riders to inform the keeps. It was the best way to buy himself time, extending the journey as much as was plausibly possible; and, of course, to avoid whatever traps his uncle had set along the planned route. Plus, Laurent had his own private appointments to keep along the Vaskian border.</p><p>They talked about the merits of Ravenel’s defenses when compared to Fortaine. Laurent kept his gaze determinedly on the map as they spoke, never once glancing back towards the bed. Exhaustion was a heavy weight, but he could not bring himself to sleep in his uncle’s room. He had sworn never to spend the night under that speared boar, those blood-red draperies, again. Instead, he immersed himself in their discussions.</p><p>As the night wore on, Laurent abandoned his deliberate comportment for a relaxed, youthful pose, drawing one knee up to his chest and slinging an arm around it. This seemed to unsettle Damen, who remained rigidly upright and eyed Laurent as if he were a snake, coiled to strike. Privately, Laurent found this somewhat amusing. After all, he was the one seated across from the man who had haunted his nightmares since he was thirteen—that this barbarian should find Laurent intimidating felt like a savage twist of fate.</p><p>About an hour before dawn, Laurent rose. “We’re done for tonight,” he said briefly. He brusquely informed Damen that he would be summoned when he was needed, and promptly left to begin preparations for the morning. His own men had worked through the night; the Regent’s had not. Laurent had prepared a few choice remarks which proved sufficient motivation to ensure that every man, regardless of faction, was ejected from bed and prepared to ride by the time the sun broke across the horizon.</p><p>Long before they rode out, however, it was obvious that the Regent had not failed to meet Laurent’s expectations for the company he would send. His uncle had chosen the worst standard of men he could find to send out with his nephew. As Laurent suspected, then, Chastillon had been largely a mechanism by which his uncle could conceal their poor quality from the court. They were not even trained soldiers, for the most part; they were mercenaries, second- and third-rate fighters.</p><p>With a rabble like this, Laurent knew exactly what to expect: slurs and sly insinuations about the frigid prince with a pretty face. It was not difficult to imagine what may have provoked Aimeric into a fight, though Laurent himself had grown used to such comments. He had heard worse whispered about him at court, most often rumors that wound their way back to his uncle’s mouth. Laurent knew that he was unlike Auguste; he did not have the build of a captain, he could not command respect simply by walking through a room or perching himself atop a horse. Respect was something he would always, painfully, have to earn; but sometimes, it was better to be underestimated.</p><p>They rode out.</p><p>***</p><p>There was no immediate disaster.</p><p>They rode through long green meadows scented with white and yellow flowers, Govart crude and commanding on a warhorse at their head, Laurent beside him. He had no doubt that, contrasted against the captain’s bulk, he must look like a delicate, useless figurehead to the men behind them. He had not disciplined Govart at all for his stableboy-induced tardiness, nor had he done anything to reprimand the Regent’s men for shirking their duty the previous night. He knew how to be patient.</p><p>There were in total two hundred men, followed by servants and wagons and supplies and additional horses. There was no livestock, as there would be following a larger army on campaign. This was a small troop with the luxury of several supply stops on the way to their destination. There were no camp followers—Laurent had seen to that.</p><p>Still, they stretched out for almost a quarter mile because of stragglers. Govart sent riders from the front streaming down to the end of the column to shout them into action, which caused a minor ruckus among the horses, but no noticeable improvement in forward motion. Laurent watched all of this happen, and did nothing to remedy any of it.</p><p>Setting up camp took several hours, which was too long. Time wasted was time robbed from rest when the Prince’s men had already been up half the preceding night. Govart gave basic commands but did not care much for fine work or detail. Laurent noted that Jord once more shouldered most of the responsibilities of Captain, as he had done the previous night, and the men who did work took their orders from him.</p><p>There were those among the Regent’s men who simply worked hard because work needed to be done, but it was an impulse that came out of their own natures rather than through any external discipline or commands. There was little order among them, and no hierarchy, so that one man might shirk as he pleased with no repercussions except the growing resentment of the others around him.</p><p>The men could not survive a fortnight of this, with a fight at the end of it. The sooner Laurent could cultivate order, the better their chances for survival; at the same time, he could not force a conflict—it would need to arise naturally if he wanted to ensure that his uncle had no means for recourse once he turned off Govart. Laurent set his jaw, and remained coolly aloof, allowing the disorder to continue. Some things were done well. The sentries were posted promptly, and so were the outriders, taking up position with the same professionalism that Laurent expected of his men at the palace. The site of the camp was well chosen.</p><p>Laurent’s tent was very large, and much preferable to his uncle's room at Chastillon. The canvas ceiling draped well above Laurent’s own head in scalloped folds of twilled silk, and was high enough to accommodate taller men without obstruction. The walls were covered in draperies of rich blue and cream, shot through with gold thread. The entrance area was arranged for visitors with chairs and a receiving table, much like a warfield tent. It was warmed with braziers, and further lit by candles. Screened away at the back was the sleeping area, a tumble of cushions, silks, and swathed bedding. And, emphatically separate, a slave pallet.</p><p>Laurent met with Govart, briefly, to provide some semblance of normalcy, and again, after, with Jord, so that he might be provided with a complete and accurate picture of their situation. It was from Jord that he learned there had been another altercation—Aimeric and the Regent’s men, again. Orlant, one of Laurent’s best men, had almost come to blows with Lazar, one of the Regent’s; Jord had been able to prevent the violence, but tension was already thick across the camp. Laurent was surprised to learn, once more, that it had been Damen who sought out Jord to put an end to the conflict.</p><p>After dismissing Jord, he called for one of the servants who oversaw armaments to give a report. It was while he was in the middle of receiving this report that Damen entered. Laurent waved him inside to wait.</p><p>Once the servant was dismissed, Laurent rose. Damen, who had been eying the bedding, turned his gaze to the prince, and between them stretched a silence in which Laurent looked warily back. He turned over in his mind, carefully, what he was about to do.</p><p>“Well? Attend me,” said Laurent.</p><p>“Attend,” said Damen, flatly.</p><p>He was looking at Laurent as if searching for a lie in the words. Which was, of course, ridiculous. The prince could not call for another servant to complete the task without drawing some form of suspicion—why bring along his slave, if not for this? And he certainly would not be undressing himself in front of Damen, as if they were equals.</p><p>“Have you forgotten how?” Laurent said.</p><p>Damen frowned. “The last time, this did not end pleasantly.”</p><p>“Then I suggest you behave better,” said Laurent.</p><p>He turned his back on Damen calmly and waited, careful not to show the tension that was coursing through his body. He could feel his heart pumping desperately in his chest. It went against all instinct to command Damen near him, to leave himself vulnerable under his hands. Yet it would be a different sort of vulnerability, a different sort of admission, if he held himself carefully separate. <em>I am a prince, </em>Laurent set his jaw, <em>and I will act like one. </em></p><p>Damen drew forward with the same sort of slow wariness with which he had hesitated before speaking last night. Laurent could feel warm breath on the back of his neck as the man reached down, surprisingly gently, to brush the ends of his hair away from the laces. Laurent tipped his head very slightly, instinctively, offering better access.</p><p>It was the normal duty of a body servant to dress and undress his master. Laurent forced himself to accept the service with the indifference of one long used to attendance. He felt the tug of the laces down his back, the cool air replacing stifled heat as the brocade widened. Outside, he could hear crickets chirping. Damen’s touch was light, as if handling something which he was worried might break. He pushed the garment over Laurent’s shoulders and just for a moment, his hands rested, softly, against the hard, corded tension of Laurent’s back.</p><p>“That will do,” said Laurent, stepping away and tossing the garment to one side himself. It was ridiculous to feel…shaken, by this. Exposed. “Go and sit at the table.”</p><p>On the table was the familiar map, weighted by three oranges and a cup. Arranging himself in the chair opposite Damen, casual in pants and undershirt, Laurent picked up one of the oranges and started peeling it. One corner of the map rolled up.</p><p>“When Vere fought Akielos at Sanpelier, there was a maneuver that broke through our eastern flank. Tell me how that worked,” Laurent said.</p><p>***</p><p>Laurent woke from a deep, dreamless sleep the next morning to find himself alone in the tent. It was still early, but around him he could hear the busy sounds of his men. Forfeiting one night of sleep had cost him the precious, early morning hours that he usually spent alone, collecting his thoughts and immersed in his own private preparations.</p><p>He dressed and ate, considering once more the problem of Govart. He would need a man to report, consistently, on the captain’s behavior if he was to find the best opportunity to strike. Jord was an obvious choice—he had already been fulfilling, in many ways, the duties of captain. But to continue their covert meetings was to risk upsetting the chain of command if the men noticed their prince consistently spurning his captain. Damen, then, would be best: he could report without suspicion, and appeared thus far to be doing everything in his power to support Laurent’s cause, which was still a bit disconcerting. Outfitted for the day, Laurent set out into the camp to find his slave.</p><p>He learned after a few brief inquiries that some of the men had organized an impromptu practice in the field near the armory tent. It was a good idea in lieu of organized drills by the captain who was, once more, conspicuously absent. Laurent had no doubt that Jord had played a hand in rallying the informal gathering.</p><p>He made his way to the field—and stopped, stricken, the breath ripped from his lungs. He could see his men, along with a handful of the Regent’s faction. Aimeric was there, along with Jord, and Lazar, the man who had caused some trouble previously. But that was not what made Laurent pause.</p><p>Orlant was dueling with the wooden practice weapon, surrounded by the rest of the men, who had paused to watch the fight. Orlant was, Laurent well knew, one of the best men in his company: sure-footed, strong, and well-trained; a soldier with years of experience. Laurent had seen him best nearly every man he crossed blades with on the training field at Arles. The fighting he was engaged in now was not comprised of the cautious, exploratory engagements typical to a duel. It was the kind of fighting that was done in battle, fast and hard; he was throwing everything he had against his opponent, holding nothing back. Sword clashed against sword, and the flurry of blows ceased only for a moment here and there, to be taken up, quickly, again.</p><p>His opponent was Damen.</p><p>He fought with a sort of fluid grace, twisting and parrying, absorbing blows with incredible, incandescent strength only to release a series of his own strikes that cracked like lightning as the wooden blades collided, again and again. There was a small, unconscious smile on his face, as if he could think of nothing more enjoyable than this. A light sheen of sweat was the only sign of any exertion; it gave the distinct impression that he was glowing, lit from the inside out. There was the powerful slide of muscle, the sharp dart of eyes as he anticipated each move of his opponent, the swift, dancing movement of his limbs. Any man watching could see clearly that he had been made for battle.</p><p><em>This is the man who fought my brother, </em>thought Laurent.</p><p>On the field, Orlant disengaged, and swore. “Are you going to fight me or not?”</p><p>“You said we were sparring,” said Damen, neutrally.</p><p>Orlant flung down his sword, took two steps off to one of the watching men, and pulled from its sheath thirty inches of polished steel straightsword, which without preamble he returned to swing with killing speed at Damen’s neck.</p><p>It left no time to think—no time to guess whether Orlant intended to pull the blow or whether he really meant to cleave Damen in half. Watching, Laurent was not entirely sure himself. The straightsword could not be parried. With Orlant’s weight and momentum behind it, it would slice through a wooden practice sword as easily as it would through butter.</p><p>Faster than a sword strike, Damen moved—inside Orlant’s range and still moving, and in the next second Orlant’s back hit the dirt, the wind knocked hard out of his chest, the tip of Damen’s sword at his throat.</p><p>The training arena had gone quiet. Laurent saw one of the men he had spoken to earlier making his way towards Jord.</p><p>Damen stepped back. Orlant, slowly, got to his feet. His sword lay on the ground.</p><p>No one spoke. Orlant looked from his discarded sword to Damen and back again, but otherwise didn’t move. Jord, upon hearing the message relayed, approached Damen and clasped his shoulder, indicating towards Laurent with his chin. Damen turned his gaze from the training field to the armory tent, where Laurent stood watching.</p><p>Laurent watched as Damen passed his sword off and walked over the tufted grass. He made no attempt to meet him halfway, but simply waited. He was not entirely sure he could remain steady, if he tried to walk. The image of Damen, glistening with sweat, putting Orlant on his back in the dirt, replayed itself in his mind. A breeze had sprung up. The flagging on the tent was flapping violently.</p><p>“You were looking for me?”</p><p>Damen was not even out of breath. Laurent found for a moment that he was unable to force his lips to form words.</p><p>“What is it?” said Damen.</p><p>“You’re better than I am.”</p><p>The words just slipped out. It was a cold realization, and it slid like water down Laurent’s back. He thought of hours spent driving his body to the breaking point in training fields.</p><p>Damen released an amused breath of reaction, giving a long, scrolling look from Laurent’s head to his toes and back again, which was more than a little insulting.</p><p>Laurent flushed. His cheeks burned, and a muscle tightened in his jaw as he forcibly repressed the anger that broke open in his chest. Of course—to any man looking at him, Laurent was not a threat. As a child, he had imagined facing Damianos of Akielos on the battlefield, riding out to confront him and meeting each other as men. He realized, suddenly, that even if he ever had the chance to face his enemy in true combat, Damen would likely laugh in his face. Laurent would always only be a thirteen-year-old boy, trying desperately to fit into his brother’s armor.</p><p>“Why? Do you want to spar? We can keep it friendly,” Damen said. Like a man humoring a childish whim.</p><p>“No,” said Laurent.</p><p>Whatever might have passed between them after that was forestalled by Jord, who was approaching from behind him with Aimeric.</p><p>“Your Highness. Apologies, if you need more time with—”</p><p>“No,” said Laurent. “I’ll speak with you instead. Follow me back to the main camp.” It turned his stomach, in that moment, to spend another second alone with Damen. He walked with Jord into the camp, and did not look back.</p><p>When they arrived at Laurent’s tent, Jord said, “I didn’t realize Orlant—”</p><p>“I know,” Laurent said, cutting him off. It was not Jord’s responsibility to control Orlant’s temper. In fact, Laurent was not sure he would have been entirely upset, if Orlant’s blade had found its mark.</p><p>“You wanted to speak with me,” said Jord, after a moment.</p><p>“Yes,” said Laurent.</p><p>He liked Jord. He was one of the prince's best men: pragmatic, with a clear sense of responsibility towards the company. He was a good leader, willing to take on additional duties without complaint.</p><p>“We are both aware, I think, of the situation with Govart.”</p><p>Jord nodded, wary.</p><p>“I will expect daily reports,” Laurent said, “With updates about your captain and any other manner of conflict you may see amongst the men. You will act, of course, with discretion.” He watched Jord’s face as he said it. Laurent was asking him to break the chain of command; an added duty, on top of those he was already shouldering without any formal recognition.</p><p>But Jord only nodded, once, firmly. “Of course, Your Highness.”</p><p>***</p><p>When it happened, it was Lazar again, and Aimeric. It was the third night of the ride, and they were camped at Bailleux Keep, a brokendown structure that retained its fancy name. Lodgings inside were poor enough that the men eschewed the barracks and even Laurent remained in his tent rather than spend the night indoors, but there were a few household servants in attendance and the keep formed part of a supply line that allowed the men to restock.</p><p>However the fight started, by the time anyone else heard it, Aimeric was on the ground with Lazar standing over him. He was dusty but unblooded this time. It was bad luck that Govart was the one to intervene, which he did, dragging Aimeric up and then backhanding him across the face for making trouble. Govart was one of the first to arrive, but by the time Aimeric was rising to his feet nursing his jaw, a respectable crowd was gathering, drawn by the noise.</p><p>It was bad luck that it was late evening, and that most of the work for the day was done, giving the men free time to gather. Jord had to physically hold Orlant back, and Govart didn’t help by telling Jord to keep his men in line. Aimeric wasn’t here to get special treatment, Govart said, and if anyone retaliated against Lazar, they’d get the post. That was a step too far—a mistake, though Govart didn’t realize it. Even Lazar appeared troubled with the pronouncement rather than pleased.</p><p>Jord somehow managed to keep the peace, and when the men dispersed, he made straight for Laurent’s tent and gave a full report.</p><p>“You need to turn Lazar off,” he said, urgently.</p><p>“Hm,” said Laurent.</p><p>“This is the second time he’s put Aimeric on his back. He’s too quick to violence—hot for a fight. Govart won’t discipline him; it has to be you. I can only keep the peace for so long.”</p><p>“Govart said anyone who retaliated would get the post?” Laurent confirmed, and Jord nodded. Yes—definitely a mistake. These mercenaries hired by his uncle did not have Govart’s understanding of the factional rift; they would want a fair fight, not coddling from their captain. Laurent dismissed Jord, turning this information over in his mind.</p><p>Almost as soon as Jord had left, Damen entered, jaw set with determination. Laurent flicked a lazy gaze in his direction, then said, “You think I should have Lazar turned off. I’ve already heard it from Jord.”</p><p>Damen said, “Lazar’s a decent swordsman, and he’s one of the few of your uncle’s men who buckles down to work. I think you should have Aimeric turned off.”</p><p>“What?” said Laurent.</p><p>“He’s too young. He’s too attractive. He starts fights. He’s not the reason I came to speak with you, but since you asked what I think: Aimeric causes problems, and one day soon he’s going to stop making eyes at you and let one of the men fuck him, and the problems will get worse.”</p><p>Laurent blinked, absorbing that. He refrained from pointing out that he had not actually asked for Damen’s opinion. Instead, he answered honestly: “I can’t turn him off. His father is Councillor Guion. The man you knew as the Ambassador to Akielos.”</p><p>Damen stared at him, brows raised in surprise. Then, flat understanding settled over his features. He said, evenly, “And which one of the border castles does his father hold?”</p><p>“Fortaine,” said Laurent, in the same voice.</p><p>“You’re using a boy to gain influence with his father?”</p><p>Laurent bristled at the disdain in his tone. “Aimeric’s not a child lured in with a honeyed treat. He’s Guion’s fourth son. He knows that his being here splits his father’s loyalty. It’s half the reason he joined me. He wants his father’s attention,” said Laurent. Then, irritably, “If you’re not here to talk to me about Aimeric, why are you here?”</p><p>“You told me that if I had concerns or objections, you would hear arguments in private,” said Damen. “I came here to speak with you about Govart.”</p><p>Laurent nodded slowly.</p><p>He supposed he should have expected this. The days of shoddy discipline had not gone unnoticed. Tonight’s fight had been the perfect opportunity for a captain to step in and begin to take control of the problems in the camp, with scrupulously equal punishments and the message that violence from either faction would not be tolerated. Instead, the situation had worsened.</p><p>Damen was forthright, as was usual. “I know that—for whatever reason—you are giving Govart free rein. Perhaps you hope he’ll fall to his own mistakes, or that the more difficulties he causes the easier it will be to dismiss him. But it isn’t working like that. Now the men resent him, but by morning they will resent you for not mastering him. He needs to be brought swiftly under your command, and disciplined for not following orders.”</p><p>“But he is following orders,” said Laurent, dryly. And then, seeing Damen’s brow begin to furrow in confusion: “Not my orders.”</p><p>Damen frowned, considering that. Then, “I know you are capable of bringing Govart to heel without it being seen as an act of aggression against your uncle. I can’t believe you fear Govart. If you did, you’d never have set me against him in the ring. If you’re afraid of—”</p><p>“That’s enough,” said Laurent.</p><p>Damen set his jaw. “The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to regain face with your uncle’s men. They already talk about you like—”</p><p>“I said that’s enough,” said Laurent. <em>I already know how they talk about me. </em></p><p>Damen fell silent. Laurent frowned, considering him. It was almost—unsettling, how accurately he’d guessed Laurent’s line of thought. <em>You hope he’ll fall to his own mistakes, or that the more difficulties he causes the easier it will be to dismiss him.</em></p><p>“Why do you give me good advice?” he asked, abruptly.</p><p>The question only seemed to confuse Damen; he answered, words sharpened by frustration, “Why don’t you take any of it?”</p><p>“Govart is Captain and he has resolved matters to my satisfaction,” said Laurent. And yet, he could see that what Damen had said was true: waiting would not work, not with these men. Whatever move Laurent was going to make against Govart, it had to come soon. Laurent wouldn’t have seen it, not without the perspective of someone versed in military leadership, who could read a company of men and cut to the core of how they were feeling. His frown deepened, minutely, as he said, “I have business to attend to outside. I won’t require your services this evening. You have my leave to retire.”</p><p>He did not look back as he left the tent, still turning Damen’s words over in his mind: <em>Now the men resent him, but by morning they will resent you for not mastering him. He needs to be brought swiftly under your command, and disciplined for not following orders. </em>The problem, of course, was that no measure of discipline would be able to bring Govart under Laurent’s command. He made his way slowly towards Baillieux keep, considering this.</p><p>Inside the crumbling keep, Laurent flagged down a servant to take him to a young washerwoman that he had seen earlier in the day, beating wet linen against stone with her sleeves pushed up to reveal long, slender arms. She bowed immediately upon seeing him.</p><p>“Your Highness.” Her eyes were nervous, darting up to meet Laurent’s and then quickly away, as if not quite believing the prince would speak to her directly.</p><p>“I have a job for you,” said Laurent.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter Three</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His business with the woman sorted, Laurent returned back to his tent. Night had fallen; when he entered Damen was already spread across the slave pallet, limbs disturbing the soft fall of silk. He pushed himself half up, awkwardly, but Laurent paid him no attention, seating himself instead at the table.</p><p>Vannes’ loyalty had not been difficult to win, back in Arles. Like Laurent, she, too, had no place in the Regent's court. Had it been up to his uncle, Laurent was certain, the court would be devoid of women entirely; as it was, they were already scarce. Vannes was an ambitious and cunning woman, and if—once—Laurent beat his uncle, Guion’s spot on the Council would be vacant.</p><p>The link to Vask, then, was already present. Laurent knew where to send the missive that he now penned, carefully, drawing on his hours spent studying the Vaskian dialects. He had spent some time refreshing his knowledge of the language, but some small part of him was pleased that the work he had done at fourteen had not gone entirely to waste. When he was done writing, he sealed the dispatch with red wax and the signet that he kept in a fold of his clothes.</p><p>This done, he sat quietly for a while, considering what he knew. His uncle meant to provoke a war—that much was clear. There was no way to be certain how he might go about it, but Laurent thought he had a good idea. The cleanest mechanism by which to spark the border into a violent flame would be to hire raiders to attack a strategically selected Akielon township. Like a hornet’s nest overturned, the northern kyroi and their generals—already fractious under Kastor’s hand—would likely neglect the treaty to retaliate. Some small, southern village would be crushed, and the border lords to the south would call for war. They might even already be in league with his uncle’s plot—Guion certainly was, at least.</p><p>Laurent’s diplomatic endeavors to secure troops for himself, after his uncle had stripped him of men, would do no good if he wanted to put a stop to a border conflict caused by raiders. He would need a small force, competent enough to seek out and destroy whatever clan of mercenaries his uncle hired; for that, he would have to rely on the Vaskians. He thought of long hours spent speaking quietly to Vannes, doing everything he could to learn about diplomacy between Vere and Vask. He could only hope, now, that it would be enough—and that his letter would find its way to the proper hands.</p><p>Eventually Laurent rose, snuffed the candle with his fingertips, and in the shadowed half-light from the braziers prepared himself for bed.</p><p>***</p><p>The morning began well enough.</p><p>The company appeared to be in good spirits, despite the tension of the previous night. Fires were doused, tents were packed up and loaded onto wagons, and the men began readying themselves to ride. The dispatch that Laurent had written the night before galloped off to the east with a horse and a rider.</p><p>It was almost enough to make Laurent pause, as he considered what he was about to do. But as he dressed in riding leathers, with the heavy weight of a sword at his hip, he steeled himself. Damen’s advice had been sound. He could waste no more time in dealing with Govart.</p><p>Upon leaving his tent, he sent a page scurrying to fetch Aimeric and Lazar. As he waited, he selected a position: not in the center of the camp, where the scripting of his little show might be obvious, but still enough within sight that he would, undoubtedly, draw a crowd.</p><p>Aimeric was the first to arrive, hurrying eagerly towards his prince. His face displayed the excited nerves of a man who was unsure why he had been summoned, yet seemed delighted for any reason to speak to Laurent. Damen’s words echoed in his mind: <em>one day soon he’s going to stop making eyes at you. </em>It appeared that day was yet to come.</p><p>The excitement swung more towards nervous uncertainty, however, as Lazar appeared, moving more slowly and without any eagerness about being summoned. Spying each other, the two men could have no doubts as to why they had been called. Laurent waited until they both stood before him.</p><p>“I heard there was a fight,” he said, simply. In truth, he had heard about more than one fight—but that was unimportant for his present endeavors. “I would think your energy would be better spent addressing our enemies on the border, rather than throwing each other into the dirt like a couple of unruly children.” Both men flushed at the patronizing tone—Lazar looked like he wanted to protest that he had not been the one put on his back, but wisely held his tongue.</p><p>It was Aimeric who spoke, “Your Highness—I apologize. It was my fault. It won’t happen again.” The words were rushed, embarrassed. Lazar was trying hard not to glare at the patch of ground in front of his feet. Laurent knew how the man’s pride would buck at being told off by a young prince, green at the rein of command, who likely hadn’t lifted a finger in his life.</p><p>“What provoked you?” Laurent asked in a conversational tone of voice.</p><p>Aimeric shifted uncomfortably. “It isn’t important. Only that I was in the wrong.”</p><p>“It isn’t important?” said Laurent, who could guess from a selection of choice phrases about what words, exactly, had been exchanged. His gaze came to rest mildly on Lazar.</p><p>Lazar was silent. Resentment and anger lay underneath. Then they folded in on themselves, wedded to sullen defeat as he dropped his gaze. Laurent continued to stare at him for a moment, as if daring him to look back up.</p><p>“Where is the Captain?” said Laurent.</p><p>The Captain could not immediately be found. Orlant was sent to search for him. Orlant was so long in searching for Govart that it left little room for doubt about what the Captain was doing.</p><p>Laurent, calmly, waited.</p><p>And waited. It appeared that everything was going exactly according to plan. A silent communal snigger sprang up among the onlooking men and began to spread across camp. The Prince wished to have public words with the Captain. The Captain was forcing the Prince to wait on his pleasure. Whoever was about to be taken down a notch, the men would no doubt find it amusing. It was amusing already.</p><p>Laurent breathed steadily, focusing on the task ahead. The men had already seen that Govart was an incompetent leader. Govart himself was walking the line of insult with his prince—overconfident in his position with the Regent. All that was left to do, then, was to nudge the Captain carefully closer to the edge, until the insult was great enough that it could give way to physical resolution.</p><p>When Govart finally arrived, he approached Laurent leisurely, still fixing his sword belt in place, as though he had no qualms whatsoever in letting people know the carnal nature of what he had been doing. The men would expect the young prince to bluster, attempting to assert his authority, a course of action which, if attempted, would be met only with the impassable wall of Govart’s disdain. There were no words Laurent could use to bring Govart to heel, not with whatever leverage he had over the Regent imbuing him with unshakeable confidence. So, instead:</p><p>“Am I keeping you from fucking?” said Laurent.</p><p>“No. I finished. What do you want?’ Govart said, with an insulting lack of concern.</p><p>For a moment, the respect of the men hung carefully in the balance. Govart was not well liked; he was incompetent, rude, and abrasive. But neither had Laurent yet done anything to prove himself, and he knew that the men watching him saw only a pretty, pampered face.</p><p>And then, right on cue, Orlant arrived. He had, by the arm, the washerwoman, with her long brown curled hair and heavy skirts. There was a ripple of reaction from the watching men as they realized what, exactly, Govart had been doing. Laurent felt the balance swing slightly in his favor.</p><p>“You made me wait,” said Laurent, “while you bred your get on one of the keep women?”</p><p>Govart took the bait: “Men fuck.” His voice was nonchalant, unbothered.</p><p>“Men fuck,” said Laurent.</p><p>“I fucked her mouth, not her cunt. Your problem,” said Govart, and Laurent could see that it was about to happen, the insult Govart couldn’t resist throwing in his face, “is that the only man you’ve ever been hot for was your broth—”</p><p>Cold outrage washed over Laurent. It was the darkest, most favored rumor at court, amongst those who wanted to take the prince down a peg. Auguste was, of course, untouchable. But the younger brother…wasn’t it a bit unusual, how severely he withdrew after the heir’s death? Unnatural, a bit, to suffer that badly from the death of a brother. Men died all the time in war, after all. Why then, was the new crown prince absent from so many court functions, allowing all his duties to fall to his uncle? Was there perhaps some darker edge to the way Laurent had followed his brother around, always looking at him with those adoring eyes…</p><p>There was the sharp sound of steel as Laurent’s sword emerged from its sheath.</p><p>“Draw,” said Laurent.</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Damen, who had been watching the interaction, take a step forward before forcibly halting himself. Laurent remembered the long, scrolling look that the man had given him before, as if sizing him up and discarding him. It was the same way Govart looked at him now. Laurent tightened his grip on the hilt.</p><p>Govart was a veteran fighter, more than double Laurent’s size and with many more years of experience. Laurent knew what those watching would see when they looked at him: a palace prince who had avoided border duty his whole life and who preferred pretty words to a good, honest fight. Laurent knew that Govart had behind him the full backing of the Regent; and though it was doubtful any of the men watching knew it, he had probably been given carte blanche to dispatch the prince, if there arose any opportunity to do so.</p><p>Govart drew. There was a cruel delight in his beady eyes. Laurent could see what Govart expected would happen: challenged to a duel of honor, he would cut the heir to the throne down in front of his entire troop.</p><p>The men were watching with bated breath. All except his own guard undoubtedly shared Govart’s expectations for the match. Laurent had not even worn armor; his entire body was a target—and a trap. No one remembered that he had fought at Marlas. No one remembered that he had fought at Sanpelier.</p><p>Govart engaged with negligent ease. Steel grated along steel as their two swords came together in a burst of violence, and Laurent felt a rush of adrenaline—his plan was going to work. Once he had Govart fighting, arrogant in his belief that he would win, it would be far too easy to goad the man into making an irreversible mistake. Laurent repelled the first exchange without breaking a sweat.</p><p>And the second also.</p><p>At the end of the third, he was beginning to feel some exertion; he did not allow it to show. He stood his ground, watching his opponent calmly, measuringly.</p><p>He saw exactly what he had expected to see: furious frustration. It was intolerable for Govart: the longer Laurent went unscathed, the more the situation embarrassed him, for Govart was after all stronger and taller and older, and a soldier. This time Govart didn’t allow Laurent any respite when he attacked, but pressed forward in a savage onslaught of cut thrust attacks.</p><p>Which Laurent turned back, the jar of impact on his wrists minimized by exquisite technique that worked with the impetus of his opponent rather than against it. He was used to fighting larger men.</p><p>Laurent did not have the powerful build of a warrior. From the first time he had picked up a sword at the age of eleven, he had found it necessary to outthink his opponents. There was not one move that was not planned in advance. Yet he could not remain predictable—he twisted together layers of intent, moments when expected patterns suddenly dissolved into something else. Sword fighting, he had learned, was a puzzle like everything else, one that Laurent could construct and dismantle at will. It had taken years of pushing his body to the breaking point to achieve the necessary strength to ensure that his inventive deceptions had not just the sharpness of his mind, but also the force of hard muscle and sinew behind them.</p><p>Govart, finding himself unable to close as easily as he had expected, did the one thing Laurent had been waiting for him to do. He got angry. That was a mistake. If there was one thing Laurent had learned from his time spent in his uncle’s court, it was how to prick someone into fury and then set about exploiting the emotion.</p><p>Laurent turned back Govart’s second surge with an easy grace and a particularly Veretian set of parries, twisting and flourishing—showing off just a bit. He could feel the mute respect of the watching men grow as they observed his unquestionable skill with a blade. This was something they understood.</p><p>By now, anger and disbelief were really affecting Govart’s swordsmanship. He was making elementary mistakes, wasting strength and attacking in the wrong lines. The fight had almost grown boring. Laurent was physically not strong enough to weather one of Govart’s full-strength blows straight on his sword; he had to avoid them or counter them in sophisticated ways, with angled parries and shifting momentum. They would have been lethal, if Govart had landed any of them.</p><p>He couldn’t manage it. As Laurent surged, like water around a stone, Govart swung, furiously, wide. He would soon lose, with anger driving him to foolish mistakes. That was becoming painfully obvious to every man watching.</p><p>Something else was becoming painfully clear.</p><p>Laurent, possessing the sort of proportions that handed him balance and coordination as gifts, had not, as his uncle claimed, wasted them. He had trained long and hard, from a very young age, under the finest masters and with the best tutelage. After Marlas—after his uncle—he had deliberately kept his practice private, sparring only with his own men. He had always know that he would never be as good as Auguste, but he didn’t have to be as good as Auguste to win.</p><p>It was not even a match at all. It was a lesson in abject public humiliation. And the one teaching the lesson, the one effortlessly outclassing his opponent, was not Govart.</p><p>“Pick it up,” said Laurent, the first time Govart lost his weapon.</p><p>A long line of red was visible along Govart’s sword arm. He’d given up six steps of ground, and his chest was rising and falling. He picked up his sword slowly, keeping his eyes on Laurent.</p><p>There were no more anger-driven blunders, no more wrong-footed attacks or wild swings. Necessity made Govart take stock of Laurent, and face him with his best sword-work. This time when they came together, Govart fought seriously. <em>Good. </em>The men needed to see that Laurent would win this battle not through the element of surprise alone, not by trick or the mistakes of his opponent—he would win with pure, unadorned skill. Laurent fought with cool relentless purpose, and there was an inevitability to what was happening, to the line of blood blossoming this time down Govart’s leg, to Govart’s sword lying once more in the grass.</p><p>By now, Laurent would have the respect of the men. It was time to deal the finishing blow to Govart. He would break him, here, in front of the entire company.</p><p>“Pick it up,” he said, again.</p><p>Perhaps Govart sensed Laurent’s intention, because the third time he lost his sword, his mind snapped. Throwing aside the conventions of a duel was preferable to the humiliation of a drawn-out defeat; he abandoned his sword and simply charged. This way, it was simple: if he carried the fight to the ground, he’d win. There was no time for anyone to intervene. It was exactly what Laurent had been waiting for; he acted without hesitation.</p><p>Laurent lifted his blade and drove it through Govart’s body; not through his stomach, or chest, but through his shoulder. A slice or a shallow cut was not going to be enough to stop Govart, and so Laurent braced the hilt of his sword against his own shoulder and used the whole weight of his body to drive it in harder and stop Govart’s motion. It was a trick used in boar hunting when the spear wounded but did not kill: brace the blunt end of the spear against the shoulder, and keep the impaled boar at bay.</p><p>Sometimes a boar broke free, or snapped the wood of the spear, but Govart was a man run through with a sword, and he went to his knees. It took some effort of muscle and sinew for Laurent to pull the sword out.</p><p>“Strip him,” said Laurent. “Confiscate his horse and his belongings. Turn him out of the keep. There is a village two miles to the west. If he wants to badly enough, he’ll survive the journey.”</p><p>He said it calmly into the silence, addressing two of the Regent’s men, both of whom moved without hesitation to obey his orders. No one else moved.</p><p>No one else. Laurent turned to survey the men. From his own guard, there was gratification coupled with a total lack of surprise. They had all seen him fight; none of them had been concerned that he would lose. Except Damen, who was watching in stunned disbelief, as if he was trying to reorder his mind to fit some new reality.</p><p>The response among the Regent’s men was more varied. There were signs of both satisfaction and amusement: they had perhaps enjoyed the spectacle, admired the show of skill. There was a hint of something else too, a sort of wariness—these were men who associated authority with strength. They had not been expecting such a battle from the prince with a pretty face, and were now forced to reevaluate.</p><p>It was Lazar who broke the stillness, tossing Laurent a cloth. Laurent caught it deftly and wiped off his sword as a kitchenhand would wipe a carving knife. Then he sheathed it, abandoning the cloth, now bright red.</p><p>Addressing the men in a voice that carried, Laurent said: “Three days of poor leadership have culminated in an insult to my family’s honor. My uncle can’t have known what lay in the heart of the Captain he appointed. If he had, he would have put him in the stocks, not given him leadership over men. Tomorrow morning, there will be change. Today, we ride hard to make up wasted time.”</p><p>Noise broke out into the silence as the milling men began to speak. Laurent turned away to attend to other business, pausing by Jord and transferring to him the captaincy.</p><p>“It should have been you from the start,” he said, simply. Jord nodded and began giving orders.</p><p>And it was done. Govart, blood pumping from his shoulder, would no longer be causing any problems for Laurent—at least, not while he rode at the head of this company. Now would begin to real work: molding the men his uncle had sent into a useable force. He had gained their tenuous respect with the display of swordsmanship; it would take an iron grip to retain their loyalty. There would be no time for a slow building of camaraderie on their ride south, only hard drills that pushed the men to the brink. It was the only way that Laurent might save their lives, and his own.</p><p>***</p><p>Laurent sent four riders galloping to Arles with the news. Two of the riders were members of his own guard, one was of the Regent’s men, and the last was an attendant from Baillieux Keep. All four had witnessed with their own eyes the events of the morning: that Govart had insulted the royal family, that the Prince, in his infinite goodness and fairness, had offered Govart the honor of a duel, and that Govart, having been fairly disarmed, had broken the rules of engagement and attacked the Prince intending to do him harm, a vile act thick with treason. Govart had been justly punished.</p><p>In other words, the Regent was to be informed that his Captain had been well and truly turned off, in a manner that could not be painted as a revolt against the Regency, or as princely disobedience, or as lazy incompetence. Round one: Laurent.</p><p>They rode in the direction of Vere’s eastern border with Vask, which was bounded by mountains. They would make camp in the foothills at a keep called Nesson, and after that they would turn and make their wiggly way south. The combined effects of the cathartic violence of the morning and Jord’s pragmatic orders were already reverberating through the troop. There were no stragglers.</p><p>They had to push had to reach Nesson after the delays of the morning, but the men did so willingly, and when they reached the keep the sunset was only just beginning to drain from the sky. This boded well: perhaps the disarray of his uncle’s troops had owed more the Govart’s shoddy leadership than Laurent had initially thought.</p><p>Nesson was quite different from Baillieux in two key ways. First, it was attached to a respectably sized township, which lay near one of the few traversable passes through the mountains and received trade in the summer from the Vaskian province of Ver-Vassel. Second, it was well kept enough—just—for the men to spend the night in the barracks, and Laurent to lodge in the keep.</p><p>Laurent dismounted outside, allowing a servant to lead away his horse as he dealt with the assignment of outriders. He had a crawling suspicion that, even with the deviation from the charted route, his uncle might have men stationed in or near the township; it was a strategic location, and they both knew it. He instructed the men to keep careful vigilance and return with detailed reports.</p><p>When he entered his room, Damen was lighting the fire. He straightened, turning to face Laurent with the look of a man who has been turning over a complicated problem. There was a familiar furrow between his brows; the corners of his mouth were tugged downwards in a frown.</p><p>He said, “Did you pay that woman to fuck Govart?”</p><p>Laurent paused in the act of stripping off his riding gloves, a bit surprised by the plain question. Once again, Damen had proved more observant than Laurent had initially credited him. After a moment, he continued, deliberately, removing his gloves, working the leather from each finger individually. He kept his voice steady.</p><p>“I paid her to approach him. I didn’t force his cock into her mouth.” </p><p>Damen’s frown deepened, almost chastising, as if he did not quite believe this explanation.</p><p>Laurent said, “He had a choice.” He did not know why he felt the need to defend his actions.</p><p>“No,” said Damen. “You only made him think he did.”</p><p>Irritation bristled at the reproachful tone of Damen’s voice; Laurent faced him, coolly. “Expostulation? You were right. It needed to happen now. I was waiting for a confrontation to arise naturally, but that was taking too long.”</p><p>Damen stared at him, mouth twisted in a sour line. He seemed taken aback at hearing his guess confirmed—his eyes held the same sort of wary shock that Laurent had seem when he had confirmed, back in Arles, that someone was trying to provoke a war. “‘Right?’ I didn’t mean—” He cut himself off.</p><p>“Say it,” said Laurent.</p><p>“You broke a man today. Doesn’t that affect you at all? These are lives, not pieces in a chess game with your uncle.”</p><p>Laurent had to bite back the bitter, humorless laughter that rose in his throat. “You’re wrong. We are on my uncle’s board and these men are all his pieces.”</p><p>“Then each time you move one of them you can congratulate yourself on how much like him you are.”</p><p>The words hit like icy water, sending chills racing up and down Laurent’s spine as they worked their way into his mind. For a moment, he felt exposed, as if some layer of protection had been ripped forcibly away. <em>That isn’t fair, </em>some petulant, childish part of him wanted to say, <em>I’m not the one who started the game. It’s too late now, to change the rules.</em></p><p>Damen spoke before he could respond. “If you bind your men to you with deception, how can you ever trust them? You have qualities they will come to admire. Why not let them grow to trust you naturally, and in that way—”</p><p>“<em>There isn’t time,</em>” said Laurent. The words forced their way out, from some place deep inside him—some dark hollow, filled with fear. They were raw with honesty. It was too much—the speeches about trust and deception—when Damen understood so little of the Regent’s serpentine mind. Laurent hardly registered the fact that the man he had almost flogged to death was telling him that he had admirable qualities, although some numb, shocked piece of his mind processed that, too.</p><p>“There isn’t time,” Laurent said again, “I have two weeks until we reach the border. Don’t pretend that I can woo these men with hard work and a winning smile in that time. I am not the green colt my uncle pretends. I fought at Marlas and I fought at Sanpelier. I am not here for niceties. I don’t intend to see the men I lead cut down because they will not obey orders, or because they cannot hold a line. I intend to survive, I intend to beat my uncle, and I will fight with every weapon that I have.” The words were rough and heated, edged in their honesty.</p><p>“You mean that.”</p><p>“I mean to win. Did you think I was here altruistically to throw myself on the sword?” He could not bite back, entirely, the simmering fury that he felt.</p><p>Damen regarded him, brow furrowed once more as though considering a new problem. He thought for a moment, then:</p><p>“Two weeks isn’t long enough. You will need closer to a month to get anywhere at all with men like these, and even then, the worst of them will need to be weeded out.”</p><p>“All right,” said Laurent, carefully, “Anything else?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Damen.</p><p>“Then speak your mind,” said Laurent, “Not that you have ever done anything else.”</p><p>Damen said, “I will help you in whatever way I can, but there will be no time for anything but hard work, and you will have to do everything right.”</p><p>Laurent lifted his chin and replied with every bit of cool, galling arrogance that he did not feel.</p><p>“Watch me,” he said.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>the reference to learning Vaskian dialects when he was fourteen is from a memory I wrote into book one :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter Four</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Laurent, just turned twenty, and possessing an elaborate mind with a gift for planning, detached it from the petty intrigues of the court and set it loose on the broader canvas of this, his first command.</p><p>It felt, in many ways, like flexing a muscle whose strength he had not previously realized. It began when, after a long night of tactical discussion with Damen, Laurent addressed the troop with a portrait of their shortcomings. He did it from horseback, in a clear voice that carried to the farthest of the gathered men. He had listened carefully to everything Damen had said last night. He had listened to a great deal more than that. As he spoke, he drew on the nuggets of information that he had obtained from listening to servants and armorers and soldiers over the last three days.</p><p>Laurent regurgitated the information in a manner that was as scintillant as it was scathing. When he was done, he threw the men a bone: perhaps they had been hampered by poor captaincy. They would therefore stop here in Nesson for a fortnight to accustom themselves to their new Captain. Laurent would personally lead them in a regime that would tax them, trim them, and turn them into something approximating a company that could fight. If—he couldn’t help adding—they could keep up with him.</p><p>But first, he appended silkily, they would unpack and make camp here again, from kitchens to tents to horse enclosure. In under two hours.</p><p>The men swallowed it. They would not have, had Laurent not taken on their leader and beaten him, point for point, the day before. Even then, they might have balked had the order come from an indolent superior, but from the first day, Laurent had worked hard without comment or complaint. That, too, had been calculated to within a hair.</p><p>And so they got to work. They hauled out tents and hammered in posts and pegs and unsaddled all the horses. Jord gave crisp, pragmatic orders. The tent lines looked straight for the first time since they had ridden out.</p><p>And then it was done. Two hours. It was still too long, but it was better by far than the sprawling chaos of the last few evenings.</p><p>Re-saddle, was the first order, and there followed a series of mounted drills that were designed to be easy on the horses and brutal on the men. Damen and Laurent had planned the drills out together last night, with some input from Jord, who had joined them in the grey hours of the morning. Laurent could see, as he saddled his horse, that mild surprise crossed Damen’s face, as if, with Govart turned off, he had expected the prince to step back and let Jord shoulder the burden of leading the men alone.</p><p>Laurent was used to being underestimated, but after their meeting the previous night it was a little insulting—he threw himself into the drills, setting the pace. When there was a moment of reprieve, he reined his horse alongside Damen’s, saying, “You have your two extra weeks. Let’s see what we can do with them.”</p><p>In the afternoon they switched to line work: lines that broke again, and again, and again, until finally they didn’t, if only because everyone was too weary to do anything but mindlessly follow commands. The day’s drills had pushed even Laurent, and when they were done he felt the satisfied exhaustion that he typically associated with a day spent on the training fields.</p><p>The men returned to camp boneless and exhausted with no energy to complain that their leader was a blond, blue-eyed fiend, curse him. Laurent saw Aimeric, sprawled by one of the campfires with his eyes closed, as he made his way back to his own tent. He felt a pang of kinship for the young man—he knew what it was like, pushing your body to the brink because you felt you had something to prove. It was clear that Aimeric was determined to keep up with the rest of the company, to show that his highborn status didn’t prevent him from matching the pace of the rough men around him.</p><p>Laurent was reminded of the first time he had begun training in earnest, when he was thirteen years old. The sudden death of his mother, Hennike, had meant the loss of Vere’s alliance with Kempt. Theomedes, the king of Akielos, had turned a hungry eye towards Laurent’s country, suddenly more vulnerable than it had been in years. With war brewing, every man who was able to fight suddenly found himself immersed in military preparations. The training fields at Arles were full of the ringing sound of blades crossing.</p><p>Hennike had not wanted to make a soldier of her youngest son. Auguste, showing an early aptitude, had already developed into one of the best warriors that Vere had ever seen under the proud eye of king Aleron. Laurent, who was weedy and bookish, did not draw a similar attention from his father. When he insisted, at age eleven, that he be allowed to begin training in swordsmanship—eyes full of his brother, resplendent in armor, like a character from some myth or legend—Hennike had agreed only because Laurent was so desperate to follow in Auguste’s footsteps, and the training had been a lighthearted sort of endeavor meant only to satisfy a boy’s desire to play knight.</p><p>It was not lighthearted after Hennike died. It was preparation for war. Thirteen was young to train for the king’s army, but nothing could sway Laurent. He had made himself sick with it, forcing his body through drills meant for older men until, winded and panting, he had stumbled to the side of the field and thrown up.</p><p>Auguste had found him there. He approached in the same cautious way he had approached the first time he took Laurent hunting, when he had found his little brother teary-eyed over a frightened rabbit.</p><p>“Excellent, excellent,” His eyes had sparkled with laughter, as they so often did, “Vere’s new secret weapon! I can see it now: our troops, facing down the Akielon barbarians. Their best warriors, snarling and spitting like lions. Will we face them with swords? With arrows?”</p><p>“Auguste,” said Laurent reproachfully, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Yet he couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips, despite himself.</p><p>“No! Fear not! Vere has a weapon more frightful than any Akielos has seen, something that will leave their best warriors quaking in their sandals: my little brother, stuffed full of—” he glanced at the mess in the grass, then raised a brow, “Sweetmeats?”</p><p>“Stop it,” Laurent shoved his brother playfully, “They were the ones with all those layers, and honey, you know those are my favorite.”</p><p>“No, please,” Auguste cowered away from Laurent’s touch, an expression of horror so grossly magnified that it was comical, “Give me the arrows, the swords—just keep him away from me!”</p><p>Laurent was laughing now, unable to help himself. Auguste had managed to erase the burning shame that he had initially felt at his inability to keep pace with the men without making Laurent feel self-conscious at all. His brother smiled down at him, warmly, but there was some private expression behind his eyes that Laurent had been unable to decipher.</p><p>After a moment, he said softly, “She wouldn’t want you to push yourself like this.”</p><p>Laurent had bristled, wary, and said stubbornly, “I can keep up. This is my country; it’s my duty to fight for it, too.”</p><p>“And fight you will,” Auguste had said, “But not if you’re making yourself sick. No man is expected to go beyond his ability—that includes you.”</p><p>There had been a moment of silence while Laurent stared, sullenly, at the ground. Then:</p><p>“You go beyond your ability. You go beyond everyone’s—I’ve seen you fight.”</p><p>Something had twisted in Auguste’s expression, before it righted itself. “It’s a good thing you’re not me, then, little brother. Can you imagine—two Augustes? It would be horrible! Who would read all the books in that dusty old library?” He poked Laurent’s side as he said it, winning a smile from the younger boy. They had returned, side by side, to the training field.</p><p>***</p><p>Jord was the first to arrive at Laurent's tent, ready to review the day’s training. Damen entered shortly after, pushing open the tent flap, and Laurent gestured for him to join them.</p><p>“The post mortem,” Laurent said.</p><p>The day’s events were dissected. Laurent asked Damen for his honest opinion, and listened as he gave it: the men were not beyond hope. They were not going to become a perfectly trained company in a month. But they could be taught some things. They could be taught how to hold a line and how to resist an ambush. They could be taught basic maneuvers. Damen outlined what he thought was realistic. Jord agreed, and added a few suggestions.</p><p>Two months, said Jord frankly, would be a hell of a lot more useful than one.</p><p>Laurent said, “Unfortunately, my uncle has tasked us with duty on the border, and as much as I would prefer it otherwise, we do have to arrive eventually.”</p><p>Jord snorted. They discussed a few of the men, and tweaked the drills. Jord had a knack for identifying the root of camp problems. He seemed to take it as a matter of course that Damen was part of the discussion.</p><p>When they were done, Laurent dismissed Jord and sat in the brazier warmth of the tent gazing leisurely at Damen.</p><p>Damen said, “I should check over the armor before I turn in, unless you need me for something.</p><p>“Bring it in,” said Laurent. He was not entirely sure what drove him to say it.</p><p>Damen obeyed. He sat down on the seat and looked over the buckles and straps and systematically checked every part, as if by habit. The steady work seemed almost to soothe him.</p><p>Laurent said, “What do you think of Jord?”</p><p>“I like him,” said Damen. “You should be pleased with him. He was the right choice for Captain.”</p><p>There was an unhurried pause. Laurent regarded Damen as he picked up a vambrace. He thought of the way Damen had surveyed the company of men and cut straight to the heart of their problem; of the way he had planned out drills with meticulous attention to detail; of the way he had fought Orlant, cool-headed and surefooted.</p><p>“No,” said Laurent. “You were.”</p><p>“What?” said Damen. He gave Laurent a startled look, and seemed even more surprised to find Laurent gazing steadily back at him. “There isn’t a man here who’d accept orders from an Akielon.”</p><p>“I know that. It’s one of two reasons I chose Jord. The men would have resisted you at first, you’d have had to prove yourself. Even with the extra fortnight, there wasn’t enough time to play all of that out. It frustrates me that I cannot put you to best use.” It was new, this way of speaking—openly, with no layers to the words.</p><p>The surprise was setting into Damen’s features, shifting as he paused to process the words. Obviously, he had never expected Laurent to admit what they both knew to be true: that Damen was the best man in this company. Laurent could hardly fault him for his shock; a week ago, he doubted he would have been able to admit it even to himself.</p><p>“That’s the last thing I expected you to say,” Damen admitted, a little wryly.</p><p>“Did you think I was too proud to see it? I can assure you, the pride I have invested in beating my uncle far outweighs the feelings I hold on any other account.”</p><p>“You just surprised me,” said Damen, “Sometimes I think I understand you, and at other times I can’t make you out at all.”</p><p>“Believe me, that sentiment is mutual.”</p><p>“You said two reasons,” said Damen, “What was the other?”</p><p>“The men think you bend me over inside the tent,” said Laurent, calmly. Damen, certainly, would know about the speculations—likely in more detail than Laurent, in front of whom the men would never speculate freely, so that it was up to his own imagination to guess at the specifics of what they said. Yet he acted as if to hear the words from Laurent’s mouth was a shock; the feeling transmitted itself to his body, and he fumbled the vambrace. Laurent continued smoothly, “It would erode my authority. My carefully cultivated authority. Now I have really surprised you. Perhaps if you were not a foot taller, or quite so broad across the shoulders.”</p><p>“It’s considerably less than a foot,” said Damen.</p><p>“Is it?” said Laurent, unable to entirely hide the amusement that crept into his voice, “It feels like more when you argue with me on points of honor.”</p><p>But the humor did not translate itself to Damen’s tone. “I want you to know,” he said, carefully, “that I haven’t done anything to encourage the idea that I—that you and I—”</p><p>“If I thought you had, I’d have had you tied to a post and flogged until your front matched your back.”</p><p>There was a long silence. Outside there was the quiet of the bone-tired, sleeping camp, so that only the tent flaps and a few indeterminate sounds of shifting could be heard. Damen’s knuckles had gone white on the vambrace; Laurent watched as he deliberately loosened his grip.</p><p>Laurent rose from his chair; the fingers of one hand lingered on the chair back.</p><p>“Leave that. Attend me,” Laurent said.</p><p>Damen rose, unable to hide his annoyance at the command. The garment Laurent wore today had ties in front rather than in back. Damen unlaced it gracelessly, with stiff fingers.</p><p>Laurent was not sure why he felt the need to—push this, except that he felt some urge to grip onto the irritation, suddenly, and to back away from warmth that had begun to creep into their discussion. Like remembering a bruise, and pressing fingers into it to remind yourself of the ache.</p><p>The jacket opened under Damen’s hands. He moved behind Laurent to draw it off, with a restless huff of breath. They both knew that Laurent could remove his outer garments himself. But there was some form of balance, from the command; they were not friends, seated across a table. They were—this. Just this, and not anything more or less.</p><p>Freed from the jacket, Laurent lifted his hand to his shoulder, rolling it. His lashes dipped as he allowed his body to settle into the slight stiffness. The rest of his limbs felt loose, compared to the knot in his back. Every part of him was exhausted.</p><p>They did not speak again, that night.</p><p>***</p><p>In the morning, they did it all again.</p><p>And again. Getting the men to follow orders designed to push them was an achievement. Some of these men enjoyed hard work, or were of the type who understood that they had to be pushed in order to be improved, but not all of them.</p><p>Laurent accomplished it.</p><p>That day, the troop was worked, molded, and shaped towards its purpose, sometimes it felt by will alone. Laurent had no camaraderie with the men. There was no warmth, no smiling and back-slapping—there was never going to be. Laurent wasn’t loved. Laurent wasn’t liked. Even among his own men, who would follow him off a cliff, he knew from their years in the palace that the unequivocal consensus was that the prince was cold as ice.</p><p>It didn’t matter. Laurent gave orders and they were followed. Men found when they tried to balk that they couldn’t. Laurent’s grip was iron; his mind was a tightly wound machine, confronting and compelling the men to do as they were told.</p><p>And perhaps, out of this, a thin thread of respect was growing. Laurent grasped the reins of power firmly, and was mildly surprised that in addition to the growing host of realizations he had encountered on the campaign thus far came this: he was good at leading—even if the ability grew only out of his private obstinate insistence that he <em>would, </em>no matter the obstacles, lead these men well. He fixed his eyes on his goals and was prepared to do whatever he had to in order to achieve them. Challenges were faced clear-eyed. Problems were seen in advance, unraveled or sidestepped. And there was some part of him, he discovered, that enjoyed the process of bringing these hard men under his control. Laurent had always been good at puzzles—and what was this but another problem to solve?</p><p>Inevitably, some of the men did resist orders. There was an incident that first afternoon when one of the Regent’s mercenaries refused to follow Jord’s commands. Around him, one or two of the others were sympathetic to his grievance, and when Laurent appeared, there were rumblings of genuine unrest. It was immediately apparent that the mercenary had enough of the sympathy of his fellows that there was the danger of a minor insurrection if Laurent ordered him put on the post. A crowd gathered.</p><p>Laurent didn’t order him put on the post. He didn’t need to.</p><p>Instead he flayed him, verbally.</p><p>It was not like his exchanges with Govart, which he had needed to build, carefully, to goad the man into retaliation. It was cool, explicit, appalling, and it reduced a grown man in front of the troop as utterly as a sword thrust had done.</p><p>The men got back to work after that.</p><p>They returned to camp that evening to find that there was no camp, because the servants at Nesson had dismantled everything. On Laurent’s orders.</p><p>“I’m feeling generous,” he said, from horseback. “You have an hour and a half to make camp, this time.”</p><p>***</p><p>They trained for the better part of the two weeks, camped in the fields of Nesson. The troop would never be a precision instrument, but they were becoming a blunt but useable tool, able to ride together and fight together and hold a line together. They followed straightforward commands.</p><p>They had the luxury of being able to wear themselves out, and Laurent was taking full advantage of it. They were not going to be ambushed here. Nesson was safe. It was too far from the Akielon border to throw suspicion for an attack southward, and it was close enough to the border with Vask that any attack could lead to a political quagmire. Akielos was his uncle’s goal; there was no reason to wake the sleeping Vaskian Empire.</p><p>Besides which, Laurent had brought them so far from the route the Regent had originally planned for him to take that any traps left in wait for them would be left languishing, waiting for a company that never arrived.</p><p>By the tenth day, the men were drilling like they could face an ambush with at least a chance of survival, and Laurent had begun to feel the first fragile stirrings of hope. There was a sense of steady building and accomplishment growing in the troop; despite the brutal pace of training that Laurent had set, spirits were high.</p><p>Alone in his tent that evening, Laurent found his thoughts turning once more to Auguste.</p><p>The last thing Auguste had done with his life was lead his company of men to battle at Marlas. Laurent remembered those weeks spent on the road with his brother, marching southward, watching the crown prince lead like he had been born for it. War hung over the heads of all the men, sharp as an axe. Laurent, still a boy, had ridden buoyed by heroic dreams of galloping into battle and vanquishing an enemy, then returning to Arles to receive the vivid praise and approbation of all their citizens. He had been young; war had still felt like something from one of his books, a story of heroes and villains. And Auguste, golden, strong and brave, was the hero, so how could they possibly lose?</p><p>Auguste had not been like Laurent. He was not a boy, caught up in heady notions of victory. He was twenty-five, and a young man, with the lives of many other young men on his shoulders. Yet Laurent could not remember a single moment that his brother had ever shown doubt, or hesitation, or even fear. His men respected him from the moment they saw him; he was a warm and good-hearted man, and there had been an easy camaraderie that sharpened into fierce loyalty. He had never faltered under the mantle that he carried; it had all come so naturally to him. Everywhere that Laurent was cold, Auguste had been warm.</p><p>He stared down at the map spread before him, unconsciously tracing the route they had ridden to Marlas. From Arles down through the Western provinces of Marches and Ladehors, following the coast until they reached their destination. It was the first time Laurent had ever laid eyes on the sea; he remembered the shocking blue of it, and the way it spread, calm and powerful, to kiss the horizon.</p><p>He was still staring at the map when Damen stepped into the tent. Laurent glanced up, then sat back in his chair and gestured for Damen to sit. It was time to turn his thoughts away from the past, and look towards the future.</p><p>“Considering that we are two hundred horse, not two thousand infantry, I think numbers are less important than quality of men. I’m sure you and Jord both have an informal list of men you think still need to be culled from the troop. I want yours by tomorrow.”</p><p>“It won’t be more than ten,” said Damen, as if the words surprised even him. Laurent nodded. After a moment, Damen said, “Speaking of difficult men, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you.”</p><p>“Go ahead.”</p><p>“Why did you leave Govart alive?”</p><p><em>Ah. Govart. </em>“Why not?”</p><p>“You know why not.”</p><p>Yes, he did. Laurent didn’t answer at first, instead pouring himself a cupful of water from the pitcher beside the map. He thought, carefully, about how much he might say, and decided it was very little. <em>Govart probably has some information that might hurt my uncle, and I am keeping him alive in case the day comes when I might use it. </em>To his own ears, it sounded foolish; Laurent had no idea what, exactly, Govart was lording over the Regent, or whether it would even be helpful to his own cause. Half the reason he had let the man go had to do with his own insatiable need to know what secret, exactly, could move his uncle to sacrifice power in the ways he did to Govart.</p><p>Laurent said, “I preferred to give my uncle no reason to cry that I had overstepped my bounds.”</p><p>Damen saw through it. “You were well within your rights after Govart charged at you. And there was no shortage of witnesses. There’s something else.”</p><p>“There’s something else,” Laurent agreed, looking at Damen with steady eyes. As he spoke he lifted his cup and took a sip. Damen met his gaze, and saw that he meant to divulge nothing further. He switched subjects.</p><p>“It was an impressive fight.”</p><p>“Yes, I know,” said Laurent.</p><p>He did not need it put into words—he had seen the impression his swordsmanship had made already, painted in bewildered awe across Damen’s face the day that the duel took place. He remained relaxed, with the cup now dangling from the tips of his fingers, and gazed back at Damen steadily.</p><p>“You must have spent a lot of time in training,” said Damen, and Laurent was a bit surprised to find himself answering seriously.</p><p>“I was never a fighter,” said Laurent. “That was Auguste. But after Marlas, I was obsessed with…”</p><p>He stopped, remembering suddenly who he was speaking to. He recalled all the ardent hatred that had burned in his veins after Marlas, as he had taken to the training field day after day, honing his skill with a blade. There had been no brother to comfort him when he made himself sick.</p><p>Sitting across from him now was the man he had pictured, in the darkest parts of his mind, as he sweated and panted and set his body alight with the pain of hard labor. The man he had trained, single-mindedly, to kill. There was a disconcerting moment as Laurent searched for that anger that had lived, coiled beneath the surface of his skin, and found it somehow disconnected, harder to reach. The man sitting across from him watched with open eyes, waiting for his answer.</p><p>He met his gaze, and spoke deliberately.</p><p>“Damianos of Akielos was commanding troops at seventeen. At nineteen, he rode onto the field, cut a path through our finest men, and took my brother’s life. They say—they said—he was the best fighter in Akielos. I thought, if I was going to kill someone like that, I would have to be very, very good.”</p><p>Damen was silent after that; there was something closed-off behind his eyes. A more sentimental man might have thought it was guilt—as if they had both forgotten, for a moment, the past that lay between them, binding them together more securely than any gold around wrist or throat.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter Five</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Laurent’s heart dropped when he saw it: a riderless horse on the far edge of the thin tree cover. It was an unusual piebald; he recognized it immediately. Reining in his own mount, Laurent moved in close to Jord in one smooth motion.</p><p>“Take the men back,” said Laurent. “We’re done for today. The slave stays with me.” A glance at Damen, who was watching him apprehensively.</p><p>It was the late afternoon. Their maneuvers had taken them from the keep of Nesson for the day, so that the nearby hill-clustered town of Nesson-Eloy was visible from their vantage. There was a ride between the troop and the camp, over the lumpy grassed hillside with its occasional scatterings of granite. But even so, it was early to retire for the day.</p><p>The troop turned on Jord’s order. They looked like a whole—like a single functioning unit, rather than a straggling collection of disparate parts. Here was the result of a fortnight’s hard work. The sense of accomplishment mingled with an awareness of what this troop might have been, given more time, or a better collection of fighters. As they watched them go, Damen moved his horse alongside Laurent’s.</p><p>By now, Damen had seen the horse, too. His eyes scanned the terrain clinically; his shoulders were tense.</p><p>“Stay close,” said Laurent as he spurred his horse to investigate, giving Damen no choice but to follow. Laurent reined in again when they were close enough to clearly see the steed. It didn’t spook at their approach, but continued calmly grazing. It was clearly used to the company of other men and horses. It was used to the company of these men and horses in particular.</p><p>In two weeks, its saddle and bridle were gone, but the horse bore the Prince’s brand. Laurent had sent a messenger galloping off on this horse the morning he had dueled Govart, before most of the camp had awoken. His heart thumped in his chest, as he thought about the two letters he had given the messenger, Tionne: the first, bound for the Eastern border with Vask. The second, bound for the town of Nesson-Eloy below.</p><p>Tionne was one of Laurent’s most trusted men, and one of his best riders. He had fought under Auguste, and had pledged Laurent’s faction rather than the Regent’s after Marlas. He would not have abandoned his mission. Laurent felt something like nausea crawl up his throat as he wondered, vaguely, whether Tionne had at least delivered his first dispatch to the Vaskian border, before he had been killed.</p><p>Because there was no doubt in Laurent’s mind that the man was, indeed, dead. The riderless gelding before him now was easily worth two hundred silver lei. Every holding between Baillieux and Nesson would have been after it, either to return it for a reward or to stamp their own brand over Laurent’s. It had not simply wandered, unmolested, back to the troop after two weeks.</p><p>Someone wanted Laurent in Nesson-Eloy.</p><p>It did not require much effort of the imagination to determine who, exactly, had set the trap. Laurent felt a burst of sticky anger with himself—he had been foolish to think that his uncle, once informed of his nephew’s changing route, would not create fresh snares along the Eastern border. Quickly, he broke down in his mind how the trap would take shape.</p><p>A small group of mercenaries, hired by the Regent, would have been on lookout for the prince’s messengers. His uncle would have suspected that Laurent was attempting to forge alliances behind his back—he prepared, always, for every contingency. Once the messenger had been captured and disposed of, his abandoned horse would be prodded deliberately back into Laurent’s path, guiding him into an ambush by the same mercenaries that had killed his man.</p><p>It was really quite clever, and hinged on his uncle’s intimate knowledge of the way Laurent thought. The Regent had realized, infuriatingly, nauseatingly, that Laurent would be grasping at straws, sending out coded messages in secret. The capture of such a messenger, then, was not a matter that could be addressed with the entire company—not without raising sensitive questions. Laurent would need to investigate alone, to ensure—if the missive was important enough—that it somehow reached its mark. And this was a message that <em>was </em>important enough, that Laurent must ensure reached the correct ears.</p><p>He tried to comfort himself with the fact that, because the trap was drawing him to Nesson-Eloy, Tionne had likely reached his first destination at the border before his capture. He tried not to think about Tionne’s newborn daughter in Arles, who would never know her father. This was war—it had been war for a long time. He could not allow pieces of himself to be chipped away with every casualty.</p><p>As if he was reading Laurent’s thoughts, Damen said, “Someone wants you to know your messenger didn’t get through.”</p><p>“Take the horse,” said Laurent, “ride back to the camp, and tell Jord that I will rejoin the company tomorrow morning.” Whatever trap his uncle had set, he could outplay it. He would have to.</p><p>“What?” said Damen. “But—”</p><p>“I have something to attend to in town.”</p><p>Damen moved his horse to block Laurent’s path.</p><p>“No. The easiest way for your uncle to get rid of you is to separate you from your men, and you know it. You can’t go into town alone, you’re in danger just being here. We need to rejoin the troop. Now.”</p><p>Laurent glanced at their surroundings, and said, “It’s the wrong terrain for an ambush.” It was true: the flat, scrubby brush provided little cover.</p><p>“The town isn’t,” said Damen, which was, of course, also true. He took hold of Laurent’s horse’s bridle, as if concerned that Laurent might try to dart around him. “Consider alternatives. Can you entrust the task to someone else?”</p><p>“No,” said Laurent.</p><p>He said it as a calm statement of fact. If his rendezvous was still waiting in Nesson-Eloy, it was a meeting that could only happen with Laurent, now that Tionne had been killed. Damen’s grip on the bridle tightened, almost imperceptibly, a sign of frustration forced down.</p><p>“Then take precautions. Ride back with me to camp, and wait until nightfall. Then slip away anonymously, with a guard. You’re not thinking like a leader. You’re too used to doing everything on your own.”</p><p>“Let go of my bridle,” said Laurent.</p><p>Damen did. There was a pause in which Laurent looked at the riderless horse, then looked at the position of the sun on the horizon, then looked at Damen.</p><p>A guard would draw too much attention, but there was a truth to Damen’s words that he could not ignore—a truth that struck at the core of him. In all his time battling his uncle, Laurent had acted alone. He had had no other choice; the Regent had stripped from him, at every opportunity, whatever allies or connections might assist Laurent in his endeavors. He thought, ridiculously, of a fairy story his mother had read to him as a child, about an old troll who carries a stone on his back for so long that he forgets he is carrying it, until his spine is twisted and gnarled. Laurent remembered, briefly, the feel of queen Hennike’s long, cool fingers as she brushed the hair from his forehead. He could not remember the last time he had thought of his mother.</p><p>He forced himself to pause, considering fully Damen’s words. Then: “You will accompany me, in lieu of a guard, and we leave at dusk. And that is as far as I will bend on this subject. Any further opining from you will not meet with a loving reception.”</p><p>“All right,” said Damen.</p><p>“All right,” said Laurent, after a moment had passed.</p><p>***</p><p>They brought the piebald back on a lead that Laurent fashioned by the simply expedient of unclipping the reins of his own horse, looping them and dropping the loop over the piebald’s head. Damen took possession of the lead rope, since Laurent had to give all his attention to the task of riding his own horse without reins.</p><p>Laurent did not divulge any further information about his business in Nesson-Eloy, though he could feel the tension rolling off Damen in waves. Clearly, the man did not approve of the idea, but he knew better than to push Laurent.</p><p>At camp, Laurent left the horses with Damen and returned to his tent. He considered, briefly, the matter of disguises. When Damen returned, Laurent had already dressed in an expensive version of riding leathers, and there was more clothing laid out on the bed.</p><p>“Change into those,” said Laurent.</p><p>They were a nobleman’s clothes: full Veretian dress, made of fine, rich material. Damen took an amusingly long time deciphering all the lacings, and seemed to become more and more fractious as he encountered each new layer. When he was done, he shifted uncomfortably, as if unused to feeling so much cloth against his skin. With what Laurent knew of Akielon garments, he would not be surprised if it was the most clothing Damen had worn in his entire life. He looked like a man in costume. Which, of course, he was.</p><p>“This doesn’t suit me,” he said, awkwardly.</p><p>“No. It doesn’t. You look like one of us,” said Laurent, deliberately misinterpreting the statement. “It’s dusk. Go and tell Jord to expect my return mid-morning, and to carry on as usual in my absence. Then meet me by the horses. We leave as soon as you’re done.”</p><p>***</p><p>The ride to the town of Nesson-Eloy was neither long nor difficult, but when they reached the outskirts they had to give up the horses.</p><p>They left them tied off the road, knowing there was a good chance the horses were not going to be there come morning, human nature being the same everywhere. It was necessary. Where the holdings around the keep had dwindled away, the town of Nesson-Eloy, closer to the traversable mountain pass, had grown. It was a tangle of close-built houses and paved streets, and the ringing of hooves on cobblestones would awaken the world. Laurent insisted on silence, discretion.</p><p>He was familiar with the town, since the nearby keep was a common stopping place on the journey between Arles and Acquitart. He was sure of directions, and kept them to smaller streets and unlit paths.</p><p>But, in the end, the precautions did little good.</p><p>“We’re being followed,” said Damen.</p><p>They were walking along one of the narrow streets, above them crowded balconies and upper-story juttings of stone and timber that sheltered the street and sometimes arched across it.</p><p>Laurent said, “If we’re being followed, they don’t know where we’re going.” He preferred to look on the bright side. It meant that they hadn’t discovered the man waiting to meet him.</p><p>He took them sideways down a street that was part hidden by overhangs, then sideways again.</p><p>It wasn’t quite a chase, because the men following them kept their distance and only gave themselves away here and there with slight sounds. In daylight, it might have been a game played in thronged streets full of ample distractions, the town active and murmuring and covered with a haze of wood smoke. At night everything was conspicuous. The dark streets were thinning of people, and they stood out.</p><p>The men following them—it was more than one—had an easy task, no matter how many detours Laurent took. They couldn’t shake them. Privately, Laurent cursed Damen’s advice that they wait for cover of night to enter the town.</p><p>“This is getting irritating,” said Laurent. He had stopped in front of a door with the circular symbol of a brothel painted on it. “We don’t have time for cat and mouse games. I’m going to try your trick.”</p><p>“My trick?” said Damen. He was eying the door warily.</p><p>Laurent raised his fist and applied it to the door. Then he turned to Damen. “I assume that’s right? I have no idea how one usually proceeds. This is your arena, not mine.”</p><p>The viewing slit on the door slid open, Laurent held up a gold coin, the viewing slit shut with a slam that was followed by the sound of bolts being thrown open. Fragrance billowed out of the doorway. A young woman appeared, her brown hair brushed to a high gloss. She eyed Laurent’s coin, then she eyed Damen, then she appended a murmur about Damen’s size to a demurring comment about fetching the Maitresse, and they stepped through the doorway and into the perfumed brothel.</p><p>“This is not <em>my arena,</em>” said Damen, disgruntled.</p><p>Copper lamps hung from the ceilings from slender copper chains, and the walls were draped with silks. The fragrance was the thick sweetness of incense over the fading scent of chalis. The floor was carpeted, a deep pile that feet sank down into. The room that they were led into held no flat Veretian mattresses scattered with cushions, but was ringed with a series of reclining couches of carved dark wood.</p><p>Two of the couches were occupied, not with public couples, but with three of the house’s women. Laurent paced in and claimed one of the empty couches for himself, arranging his body in a relaxed posture. The illicit nature of their surroundings had his heart, boyishly, pounding. Damen sat more gingerly at the far end of the seat. His eyes kept darting to the door, as if worried that their pursuers might burst in at any moment.</p><p>Laurent, realizing he would likely have few opportunities such as this, was considering the women. He had seen a few performances by female pets, but his uncle’s distaste for women meant there were few to be found at court, and even fewer with the means to purchase pet contracts. The women seated across from them now were nothing like Vannes or her thickly muscled and imposing pet, Talik.</p><p>Where Vannes and Talik were hard, edged to match the Veretian court, these women were soft, with pink lips and inviting smiles. They looked up from beneath eyelashes coyly, and rustled their skirts playfully. Of the three, one was the glossy-haired woman who had greeted them at the door, the other was a brunette, who was idly teasing the third, a blonde whose dress was mostly unlaced. The blonde’s exposed nipple had pinked and swelled under the brunette’s lazy thumbing. The overall impression, Laurent thought, was of overripe fruit: swelling, soft skin and plump curves that spilled over the confines of their clothing. Holding a woman, he thought idly, must be very similar to wrapping your arms around a great overstuffed pillow. He could find very little appeal in it, personally.</p><p>“You’re sitting so far away,” said the blonde, boldly. She was looking at Damen as she said it.</p><p>“Then get up,” said Laurent.</p><p>She got up. The brunette rose too, and made for Laurent, but he sent her away with a flick of his fingers. She looked a bit put out as she returned to sit with the other woman on the couch she had just vacated.</p><p>Laurent was more interested in watching as the blonde piled herself onto Damen’s lap, leaning forward so that her chest pressed against his arm. Panic sparked in his eyes as he looked down at her. Her dress was open from neck to navel, trailing laces. Her exposed breasts were curved and white, the whitest part of her, except where they budded into two soft tips. Her nipples were the exact same shade of pink as her lips. It was paint.</p><p>She said: “M’lord, is there something I can do for you while you wait?”</p><p>Damen’s face was flushed; his breathing was shallow. He held himself stiff, torn between the discomfort of the situation and his obvious appreciation for the woman before him. Whatever charm they held, he was clearly not immune to it. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak Laurent said, helpfully, “Unlace his jacket.”</p><p>The blonde looked from Damen to Laurent. Damen looked at him too. He remained relaxed and elegant, tilting his head to one side as he surveyed the scene in front of him, regarding the couple without urgency. Damen’s gaze was heavy on him, and heated, although Laurent could not entirely decipher the emotion behind it.</p><p>Damen caught hold of the blonde’s wrist. Laurent released a breath—remembering, suddenly, how it felt to have Damen’s fingers wrapped around his arm. It was not a pleasant memory. It brought the room into sharper focus.</p><p>The blonde’s fingers had already moved over the lacings, uncovering beneath the dark expensive fabric of his jacket and the gold collar. “You’re—his pet?” she said.</p><p>“I can close the room,” came the voice of an older woman, faintly accented in Vaskian, “if that is your wish, and give you and the gentleman privacy to enjoy my girls.”</p><p>“You’re the Maitresse?” said Laurent.</p><p>She said, “I am in charge of this small house.”</p><p>Laurent rose from the reclining couch. “If I’m paying gold, I’m in charge.”</p><p>She sank down into a deep curtsey, eyes to the floor. “Whatever you would like,” and then, after a slight hesitation, “Your Highness. And discretion and silence, of course.”</p><p>His golden hair was, more often than not, a curse; but he had already guessed that he would likely be identified. Everyone in the town presumably knew who was camped at the keep. The words of the Maitresse provoked from one of the other women a gasp; she had not made the same deductive leap as her employer, nor had the others. They were treated to the sight of the whores of Nesson-Eloy prostrating themselves almost to the floor in the presence of their Crown Prince.</p><p>“My slave and I want a private room,” said Laurent, “at the back of the house. Something with a bed, and a latch on the door, and a window. We do not require company. If you try to send in one of your girls, you will find out the hard way that I don’t like sharing.”</p><p>“Yes, Your Highness,” said the Maitresse.</p><p>She led them with a taper through the old house to the back. Laurent was a bit worried that she might have to eject some other patron on their behalf—the fewer people who saw him in town tonight, the better. But a room that fit Laurent’s requirements was unoccupied. It was furnished simply with a low cushioned chest, a curtained bed and two lamps. The cushions were of red cloth with a raised pattern of velvet. The Maitresse closed the door, leaving them alone together.</p><p>Damen threw the latch and then for good measure pushed the chest in front of the door.</p><p>There was indeed a window. It was small, and it was covered by metal grillework that was bolted into the plaster.</p><p>Laurent was staring at it, nonplussed. “This isn’t what I had in mind.”</p><p>“The plaster’s old,” said Damen, as if it were obvious. “Here.” He took hold of the grille, and gave it a tug. Bits of plaster rained down from the edges of the window, but it wasn’t enough to detach the grille from the frame. He changed his grip, braced his stance, and put his shoulder into it. Laurent felt some vague concern for the fine Veretian cloth, as he watched the muscle bunch in Damen’s arms; the threading strained, but held.</p><p>The grille did not hold. On the third attempt, it came away from the window entirely, releasing a cloud of plaster and dust as its dying breath. Laurent watched as Damen placed it, carefully, on the floor. The thick carpet muffled any sound, as it had done when he had moved the chest.</p><p>“After you,” he said to Laurent, who had watched all this proceed, feeling slightly dazed.</p><p><em>You just broke a hole through the wall of their house, </em>he didn’t say. It wouldn’t be a useful observation; they had both seen it happen. Instead, Laurent nodded, pulled himself through the window and dropped soundlessly into the alley behind the brothel. Damen followed.</p><p>They crossed the alley under the projecting eaves, and found a dank space between two houses to push through, then went down a short series of steps. The faint sounds of their own footsteps were not echoed. Their pursuers had not flanked the house.</p><p>They had lost them.</p><p>***</p><p>“Here. Take this,” said Laurent when they were half the town away, tossing Damen his coin purse. “It’s better if we’re not recognized. And you should do up the collar on your jacket.”</p><p>“I’m not the one who has to hide his identity,” said Damen, though he obligingly laced his jacket closed, hiding the gold collar from view. “It’s not just the streetwalkers who know you’re camped at the keep. Anyone seeing a young blond man of noble birth is going to guess it’s you.”</p><p>“I brought a disguise,” said Laurent.</p><p>“A disguise,” said Damen, dubiously.</p><p>They had reached their destination, a weathered inn, and were standing beneath the upper-story overhang, two steps from the doorway. Damen looked about pointedly, as if to emphasize that there was no place for Laurent to change clothes.</p><p>The corner of Laurent’s mouth quirked up—there would be no need for any grand change. Damen stared as he drew something delicate and glittering out of a fold in his clothing.</p><p>Laurent said, “After you.”</p><p>Damen opened his mouth. Closed it. He put his hand on the inn door, and pushed it open.</p><p>Laurent followed him, after a moment spent affixing the long hanging sapphires of Nicaise’s earring to his own ear.</p><p>The sound of voices and music mingled with the smell of roast venison and candle smoke to form a first impression. Laurent cast his gaze over the wide open room with trestle tables adorned with plates and pitchers, and a fire at one end with a spit roasting over it. There were several patrons, men and women. No one wore clothing as fine as his own, or Damen’s. To one side, a set of wooden stairs led to a mezzanine, off which opened private rooms. An innkeeper with rolled up sleeves was approaching them.</p><p>After no more than a brief, dismissive glance at Laurent, the innkeeper gave Damen his full attention, greeting him respectfully.</p><p>“Welcome, my lord. Will you and your pet require lodgings for the evening?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter Six</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I want your biggest room,” said Laurent, “with a big bed and a private bath, and if you send up the house boy, you’ll find out the hard way that I don’t like sharing.”</p><p>He delivered the innkeeper a long, cool look.</p><p>“He’s expensive,” said Damen, apologetically. He was shifting uncomfortably, absentmindedly tugging at the laces on one of his sleeves.</p><p>Laurent stood, chin raised haughtily, as the innkeeper sized up the cost of his clothes, and his sapphire earring—a royal gift to a favorite—and the likely cost of Laurent himself. Enough suitors had commented on his appearance for Laurent to know that they would likely be charged three times the going rate for everything, which would still do very little to put a dent in the coin purse he’d brought along.</p><p>“Why don’t you find us a table. Pet.” At least Damen was enjoying himself.</p><p>Laurent did as directed, leaving Damen to pay for the room. He made straight for the best table, close enough to the fire to enjoy its warmth but not so close as to be overwhelmed by the scent of the slow-roasting venison. Being the best table, it was occupied. The men seated watched nervously as Laurent approached, and he only had to say shortly, “Well?” to encourage them to immediately vacate their benches.</p><p>The earring was not a discreet disguise. Laurent could feel the eyes of every man in the common room crawling hungrily over him, knowing what they would see: pet. He maintained the steady, cool-eyed arrogance that proclaimed they could look as much as they dared, but none of them could afford to touch. It was not so different from many of the looks he already got at the Veretian court. He was quite used to it.</p><p>Damen sat down across the table from Laurent on one of the long benches.</p><p>“What now?” said Damen. If he kept staring at Laurent like that—wary and cautious, as if he were seated across from a coiled snake—he was going to ruin the entire disguise.</p><p>“Now we wait,” said Laurent.</p><p>He promptly rose and made his way around the table, sitting himself beside Damen, close as a lover.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Honestly, it was a bit insulting—it wasn’t as if Laurent was going to bite.</p><p>“Verisimilitude,” he said. At least <em>one </em>of them would have to act. “I’m glad I brought you along. I wasn’t expecting to have to tear things out of walls. Do you visit brothels often?”</p><p>“No,” said Damen, frowning.</p><p>“Not brothels. Camp followers?” said Laurent. And then: “Slaves.” And then, after a satisfyingly mortified pause: “Akielos, the garden of delights. So you enjoy slavery in others. Just not yourself.”</p><p>Damen shifted on the long bench and regarded him, as if he were trying to decipher a difficult problem.</p><p>“Don’t strain yourself,” said Laurent.</p><p>“You talk more,” said Damen, “when you’re uncomfortable.”</p><p>Laurent’s stomach turned over. It was really quite irritating, the way he did that—cutting straight to the core of things with no preamble at all.</p><p>“My lord,” said the innkeeper, and Damen turned. Laurent didn’t. “Your room will be ready shortly. The third door at the top of the stairs. Jehan will bring you wine and food while you wait.”</p><p>“We’ll try to entertain ourselves. Who’s that?” said Laurent.</p><p>He indicated with his gaze the older man across the room with hair like a handful of straw protruding from under a dirty woolen cap. He sat at a dark table in the corner. He was shuffling cards as though, although earmarked and greasy, they were his prize possessions.</p><p>“That’s Volo. Don’t play him. He’s a man with a thirst. He won’t take more than a night to drink your coins, your jewels, and your jacket.”</p><p>With this advice, the innkeeper left.</p><p>Laurent continued watching Volo, idle curiosity flickering as he watched the cards fly deftly through the man’s gnarled fingers. Volo tried to cajole wine out of the house boy, then he tried to cajole something altogether different out of the house boy, who was not impressed when Volo performed a sleight-of-hand trick that involved holding a wooden spoon in his hand and then vanishing it, as though into thin air. Laurent was impressed. You never knew when a trick like that might come in handy.</p><p>“All right. Give me some coin, I want to play that man at cards.”</p><p>Laurent rose, leaning his weight against the table. Damen reached for the purse, then paused. “Aren’t you supposed to earn gifts with service?”</p><p>Laurent said, “Is there something you want?”</p><p>His voice slipped out sinuously; he kept his gaze steady as a cat’s.</p><p>Damen appeared to think better of it, and tossed Laurent the purse without further comment. Laurent caught it in one hand, and took for himself a handful of copper and silver. He tossed the purse back to Damen as he made his way across the inn floor, seating himself opposite Volo.</p><p>They played. Laurent bet silver. Volo bet his woolen cap. It was a simple game, played often by children in the Northern Veretian provinces. “You’ll have to teach me the rules,” Laurent said, with all the petty haughtiness of a spoiled pet. Volo’s eyes flashed at the easy mark.</p><p>He explained the rules, grinning with crooked teeth. Laurent furrowed his brow slightly, as though concentrating hard. They played a few rounds, until the table was empty of Laurent’s silver and bore only the woolen cap. Volo’s chest puffed with confidence, and Laurent slid the copper onto the table.</p><p>The next round went to Laurent, who accepted the cap with wide-eyed, innocent surprise at his good luck. Heartened by his win, he slid the rest of his copper onto the table. Volo eyed him warily, unwilling to bet the coin he had just taken.</p><p>“If I win again, I want you to teach me that trick. The one where you make things disappear,” Laurent told him, sniffing haughtily. The cracked grin returned, and the game continued.</p><p>As Volo scooped most of the copper off the table, Laurent turned to survey the inn. Damen was now sitting with a merchant—cloth trader, by the look of his fur-lined cloak—looking bored to tears and nodding politely at whatever the man was saying. Spread across the table were plates of bread, soft cheese and fine cuts of meat. The patrons in the common room were thinning out, but Laurent reckoned there was time for one more round of cards.</p><p>Laurent won once more, paying careful attention as Volo showed him how to conceal objects quickly in his sleeve. He proceeded to decisively lose the rest of their games, so that by the time he was standing to leave Volo had amassed a healthy pile of silver and copper. The house boy, coincidentally, had taken a sudden interest in the game.</p><p>Volo grinned, slapped Laurent soundly on the back in commiseration, then bought him a drink. Then he bought himself a drink. Then he bought himself the house boy, who was offering very generous rates—one copper for a poke, three coppers for the night—and who had warmed up a great deal to Volo now that he had piled in front of him all of Laurent’s coin.</p><p>Laurent took the drink and picked his way back across the room, where he put it, untouched, in front of Damen.</p><p>“Spoils of someone else’s victory.”</p><p>Although the inn was emptying out, two of the patrons by the fire were possibly within earshot. Damen said, “If you wanted a drink and an old hat that badly, you could have just bought them from him. Cheaper and quicker.”</p><p>“It’s the game I like,” said Laurent. He reached over and appropriated another coin out of the purse Damen carried, then palmed it. “Look, I’ve learned a new trick.” When he opened his hand, it was empty, as if by magic. A second later, the coin dropped out of his sleeve onto the floor. Laurent frowned at it. “Well, I don’t have it quite yet.” It was good enough for a first try, he supposed.</p><p>“If the trick is making coins disappear, I think you do have it, actually.”</p><p>That made the corners of Laurent’s mouth tug up, so he switched the subject. “What’s the food like?”</p><p>Damen tore off a piece of bread, and held it like a treat to a house cat. “Try it.”</p><p>Laurent looked at the bread, and then he looked at the men by the fire, and then he looked at Damen, a long, cool look that usually resulted in his opponent turning away, flushed and mumbling. But Damen held it.</p><p>“All right,” said Laurent.</p><p>Damen blinked. He looked a bit taken aback as Laurent settled next to him on the long bench, as if he hadn’t really expected his teasing to be answered. Laurent straddled the bench, facing Damen.</p><p>Pets in Vere made a teasing production out of this, flirting and making love to their masters’ hands. Laurent, when Damen brought the mouthful of bread to his lips, did none of those things. He maintained an essential fastidiousness. There was almost nothing of pet and master about it at all, but Laurent was not going to bat his eyelashes like the women in the brothel. This would have to do.</p><p>He kept his eyes on Damen’s face. He saw the bronzed gaze fall to his mouth, then jerk quickly away, to the earring. There was a warm flush settling across his cheeks, turning the high cheekbones rosy. It was difficult to see in the lamplight, but sitting this close Laurent noticed a very light dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose.</p><p>Laurent ate the bread. There was a thick, corded tension between them, something he couldn’t quite name. It was like the feeling of watching a wave rise in the sea, waiting for it to inevitably crest. Damen’s fingers never touched his lips, but they were close enough that Laurent could feel their heat.</p><p>Perhaps it was this place. The fire was crackling in the hearth, flickering light playing over the planes of Damen’s face, so that it almost looked as if his eyes were full of sparks. The muted murmur of the few final patrons in the common room, the smell of roasting meat—it was a far cry removed from the crisp night air, from the heavy canvas of tents. It made everything feel close.</p><p>Another piece of bread. Damen’s fingertips brushed against his lips. It was brief and soft. This wasn’t what he’d intended when he’d crossed the table to sit on the bench. He had some sense that his plans had spun out of his grip, like he was grasping for something with the tips of his fingers. The touch felt almost like a kiss, and Laurent was reminded suddenly of Torveld, on the balcony. The perfume of flowers and the close press of another body. Across from him, Damen’s breathing had changed.</p><p>He reminded himself forcefully of who this was, and of who he was. The cold-blooded prince of Vere would not be overcome just because of a crackling fire and a few mouthfuls of bread, offered by gentle fingers. He kept himself still, and cold.</p><p>Laurent finished the morsel, then rested a hand on Damen’s thigh, and slid it deliberately upward.</p><p>“Control yourself,” said Laurent. The words were only half for Damen.</p><p>He shifted in, until, facing one another on the straddled bench, they were almost chest to chest. Damen’s breath was warm as he leaned in, bringing his lips to the other man's ear.</p><p>“You and I are almost the last ones here,” Laurent murmured.</p><p>“And so?”</p><p>The words were breathed back, low and deep, and they settled against Laurent in an unfamiliar way.</p><p>“And so, take me upstairs,” said Laurent. “Don’t you think we’ve waited long enough?”</p><p>It was Laurent who led the way, trailing up the stairs, with Damen following. He was aware of each step, and he found his pulse beating fast beneath his skin.</p><p>The third door at the top of the stairs. The room was warmed with a well-tended fire in a large hearth. It had thick plastered walls and a window with a small balcony. Its one large bed had cozy-looking bedding and a sturdy dark wooden headboard that was intricately carved with an interlocking pattern of diamonds. There were a few other pieces of furniture, a low chest, a chair by the door.</p><p>And there was a man of about thirty with a dark, closely trimmed bear sitting on the bed, who propelled himself off it and onto one knee when he saw Laurent.</p><p>Damen sat down rather heavily on the chair by the door, looking a bit put out. Laurent’s heart leapt, joyfully, in his chest.</p><p>“Your Highness,” the man said, kneeling.</p><p>“Rise,” Laurent told him. “I’m glad to see you. You must have come every night, long after the time when you were due an answer.”</p><p>“While you were camped at Nesson, I thought there was a chance your messenger would come,” said the man, standing.</p><p>Laurent thought of Tionne, loyal and grim-faced, riding off on a piebald mare to die in the scrubby countryside of Nesson. He heard himself say, “He was detained. We were followed from the keep as far as the eastern quarter. I think the roads in and out will be watched.” He put thoughts of Tionne out of his mind, clinging firmly to the swell of happiness that this messenger, at least, had not been found.</p><p>“I know a way. I can leave as soon as we’re done.”</p><p>The man drew a piece of sealed parchment from inside his jacket. Laurent took it, broke the seal, and read the contents. It was written in cipher; his eyes moved slowly. It began with typical Akielon blustering, about how Veretians were vipers who could not be trusted, and how a Veretian’s word was worth about as much as a soiled rag. But then:</p><p>
  <em>If what you say is true, you will have my aid. But only if you can provide proof.</em>
</p><p>Laurent glanced up at Damen, who was watching him read. Proof would not be a problem. As he finished reading, he dropped the parchment into the fire, where it curled up and blacked over.</p><p>Laurent took out his signet ring, and pressed it into the man’s hand.</p><p>“Give him this,” said Laurent, “and tell him that I will wait for him at Ravenel.”</p><p>The man bowed. He left by the door and made his way out of the sleeping inn. It was done.</p><p>Damen rose and gave Laurent a long look.</p><p>“You look pleased.”</p><p>“I’m the type who takes a great deal of pleasure in small victories,” Laurent said.</p><p>“You weren’t sure he’d be here,” said Damen.</p><p>“I didn’t think he would be. Two weeks is a long time to wait.” Laurent unpinned the earring. “I think we’ll be safe on the road in the morning. The men who followed us seemed more interested in finding him than harming me. They didn’t attack us when they had the chance tonight.” There was a nagging sense of doubt, about that—Laurent had expected some sort of ambush from his uncle. But he supposed it made sense if the Regent wanted to wait until his nephew was closer to the border to dispose of him, and sought now only to interrupt Laurent’s carefully constructed alliances.</p><p>He glanced at the door appended to the wall of their room, and said, “Does that door lead to the bath?” And then, halfway to the door, added merrily, “Don’t worry, your services aren’t required.”</p><p>When he was alone, Laurent sank into the hot water with a blissful sigh. The heat soaked into his skin, unlocking muscle and unknotting tension. He sat for a moment, eyes closed, allowing a slight smile to play over his face. Small victories—if you lost sight of small victories, life became hopeless. He reflected now on the victories of the night: success in shaking their followers, going unrecognized at the inn, the messenger waiting in the room, and the letter that, surprisingly, had agreed to help instead of telling Laurent to kindly fuck off, as he had half expected it to.</p><p>He washed quickly, leaving half the clean water for Damen. He supposed that if he had accorded the resource proportionally, he might have allotted more than half—but Laurent decided that he could not be blamed for Damen’s sheer bulk. That was the man's own problem to figure out.</p><p>When he returned, half dressed, to the room, he found it empty. For a moment there was a startle of panic, paired with some other twisting feeling that Laurent could not identify—but then he spotted half the bedding, piled on the floor in front of the fire. His good mood restored, he sat down on the makeshift bed, inclining his head towards the fire that the heat might dry his damp hair. He wondered, vaguely, where Damen had wandered off to. Perhaps he’d returned to the brothel—the blonde had certainly seemed disappointed when they’d left.</p><p>He did not have to speculate for long. He had just made himself comfortable when the door opened, and Damen walked in. He was carrying a plate of bread and meats, and he blinked when he saw Laurent.</p><p>“Here,” said Damen, and passed him the plate.</p><p>“Thank you,” said Laurent. He hadn’t thought to call for food himself, but now that it was in front of him, his stomach gave a painful twist. He hadn't realized he was hungry. “The bath is free. If you like.”</p><p>Damen disappeared behind the door.</p><p>Laurent ate carefully, picking his way through the food. It was simple, and good, and paired with the warmth of the fire and the soft down of the bedding it left him feeling sated and drowsy. He returned the plate, now half full, to the chest, where it would be easily in reach of Damen’s long arms.</p><p>When Damen returned, he was dressed only in pants. Water dripped from the ends of dark curls onto his shoulders, where it slid down the planes of his chest. Laurent turned his gaze pointedly to the fire as Damen sat beside him, glancing at the plate of food on the chest.</p><p>“I thought that Volo was your contact,” said Damen.</p><p>“I just wanted to play him at cards,” said Laurent.</p><p>The fire was warm. Laurent could feel the heat of it, brushing the exposed skin of his cheeks, his neck, the backs of his hands.</p><p>After a moment, Laurent said, “I don’t think I would have arrived here without your help, at least not without being followed. I am glad you came. I meant that. You were right. I’m not used to…” <em>This. Any of this. </em>He broke off. It already felt as if he’d said too much.</p><p>Damen gave him a look.</p><p>“You’re in a strange mood,” said Damen. “Stranger than usual.”</p><p>“I’d say I’m in a good mood.”</p><p>“A good mood.”</p><p>“Well, not as good a mood as Volo,” said Laurent. “But the food’s decent, the fire’s warm, and no one’s tried to kill me in the last three hours. Why not?”</p><p>“I thought you had more sophisticated tastes than that,” said Damen.</p><p>“Did you?” said Laurent.</p><p>“I’ve seen your court,” Damen answered, gently.</p><p>Laurent sharpened, just a bit, and corrected him. “You’ve seen my uncle’s court.”</p><p>They fell silent. He could feel Damen regarding him, considering what he had said. Laurent had never given much thought to what his own court might be like; he had been too focused on seeing the day that he had a court at all. But as he thought now of Arles—of the barbed exchanges over opulent dinners, the sex-drenched violence of the arena, and Nicaise, petulant and venomous and clinging to knife edges for survival—he knew that if he ever held the weight of the crown, he would carry it differently.</p><p>The silence stretched between them, surprisingly comfortable. Laurent looked at Damen. He was smiling, absently, at the burning logs. He had a dimple, on his left cheek. Laurent had never noticed it before.</p><p>“Tell me something,” said Laurent. Damen looked over at him.</p><p>“What really happened to make Kastor send you here? I know it was not a lover’s quarrel,” said Laurent.</p><p>The dimple disappeared as the smile slid away. Damen blinked, caught off-guard; he had not been expecting the question. Laurent was not entirely sure why he had asked it—he knew, they both knew, that there was no way for him to tell the truth. It was just—the thought of courts, maybe. The thought of his uncle, and his uncle’s games. Laurent had spent so long playing them that the question behind the battle had been buried, choked by cold earth. <em>Why? Why does he do any of it?</em></p><p>It was a jarring realization that the man sitting next to him might be the only person in the world who could begin to understand that question. Who could even try to answer it. Laurent did not know why he felt the need to grasp at that thread, which cut into him—cut into them both—painfully.</p><p>“You were half right,” said Damen, distantly, as though his mind was far away, “I had feelings for…There was a woman.”</p><p>“Jokaste,” said Laurent, keeping his voice light with amusement. It was not the turn he had expected the conversation to take.</p><p>Damen was silent. Laurent remembered how the name had made him flinch, that first night in the palace. Still, he dug in, if only because it felt familiar to sink his teeth into—something.</p><p>“Not really? You fell for the King’s mistress?”</p><p>“He was not the King then. And she was not his mistress. Or if she was, no one knew it,” said Damen. The words came more quickly as he continued speaking, as though he was releasing something. “She was intelligent, accomplished, beautiful. She was everything I could have asked for in a woman. But she was a king maker. She wanted power. She must have thought her only path to the throne was through Kastor.”</p><p>“My honorable barbarian. I wouldn’t have picked that as your type.”</p><p>“Type?”</p><p>“A pretty face, a devious mind, and a ruthless nature.”</p><p>“No. That isn’t—I didn’t know she was…I didn’t know what she was.”</p><p>“Didn’t you?” said Laurent, gently. He might have believed it, when they had first met. When he had first seen the naivety that obscured men’s darker natures from Damen’s purview. But in the past two weeks they’d spent together, in their late-night meetings, he had seen Damen’s uncanny ability to cut straight to the heart of a person, past bone and muscle and façade. Perhaps it was because he was always so—<em>genuine. </em>Like a mirror, he had the ability to reflect back the deepest, most inner workings of those around him.  </p><p>“Perhaps I…I knew she was ruled by her mind, not her heart. I knew she was ambitious, and, yes, at times ruthless. I admit there was something…attractive about it. But I never guessed that she would betray me for Kastor. That I learned too late.”</p><p>“Auguste was like you,” said Laurent. He was not sure what drove him to say it, other than that it was true. “He had no instinct for deception; it meant he couldn’t recognize it in other people.”</p><p>Damen drew in a sharp breath. Then, carefully, “And what about you?”</p><p>“I have a highly developed instinct for deception.”</p><p>“No, I meant—”</p><p> “I know what you meant.”</p><p>Laurent released an amused breath. He could guess at the speculations that Damen had heard—he supposed curiosity was natural. Perhaps it was only fair, after pestering him about his own past affairs of the heart. He returned Damen’s gaze without difficulty, but said no more.</p><p>“Shy?” said Damen.</p><p>“If you want an answer, you’ll need to ask the question,” said Laurent.</p><p>“Half the men riding in your company are convinced you’re a virgin.”</p><p>“Is that a question?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“I’m twenty years old,” said Laurent, “and I’ve been the recipient of offers almost as long as I can remember.”</p><p>“Is that an answer?” said Damen.</p><p>“I’m not a virgin,” said Laurent. In the soft light of the fire, with the tumble of limbs arranged next to him, Chastillon felt far away. It was still dark, and edged, but he was able to keep his thoughts from spiraling through that door.</p><p>“I wondered,” Damen said, carefully, “if you reserved your love for women.”</p><p>“No, I—” the words slipped out, naked with surprise. Laurent cut himself off, realizing he had just given away more than he had intended. But really—Damen had seen him in the brothel. He looked a way for a moment with a muttered breath. When he looked back at Damen it was with a wry smile on his lips, as he said, steadily, “No.”</p><p>“Have I said something to offend you? I didn’t mean—”</p><p>“No. A plausible, benign, and uncomplicated theory. Trust you to come up with it.”</p><p>“It’s not my fault that no one in your country can think in a straight line,” said Damen, frowning a touch defensively.</p><p>“I’ll tell you why Jokaste chose Kastor,” said Laurent. The words slipped out before he could stop them.</p><p>Damen looked at the fire. His eyes grew guarded, like a man bracing himself for attack. A muscle twitched in his jaw.</p><p>“He was a prince,” said Damen. “He was a prince and I was just—”</p><p>He cut off, as if he couldn’t bring himself to speak the words. Honesty had always come naturally to Damen, but the truth was something painful and sharp, in this small room—something that would leave them both bleeding, if exposed. And Laurent could see the strain of lying, transmitting itself across his body: the muscles across his shoulders were knotted with tension. There was no answer he could give that would not hurt him. Laurent had not intended for him to answer at all.</p><p>“That isn’t why. She would have chosen him even if you’d had royal blood in your veins, even if you’d had the same blood as Kastor. You don’t understand the way a mind like that thinks. I do. If I were Jokaste, and a king maker, I’d have chosen Kastor over you, too.” He didn’t know why he felt the need to—give him this. To give him something.</p><p>“I suppose you are going to enjoy telling me why,” said Damen. His hands curled into fists; the words were bitter.</p><p>“Because a king maker would always choose the weaker man. The weaker the man, the easier he is to control.”</p><p>Damen turned to him, shock transforming his features into something more vulnerable. Laurent gazed back at him without rancor. The words were simple in their truth; he needed him to understand that they were true. There were so many lies, between them, and he did not know why he felt the press of that burden now, only that there was an instinct to lessen the weight. The moment stretched out. Laurent saw the words move in him, saw the light shifting behind his eyes with something that was not entirely separate from pain. He said:</p><p>“What makes you think Kastor is the weaker man? You don’t know him.”</p><p>“But I’m coming to know you,” said Laurent.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter Seven</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Laurent slept easily, and deeply. It wasn’t exactly trust that allowed his limbs to unspool loosely on the bed, to surrender to the heavy blanket of exhaustion that pressed against him—more a calm judgment of Damen’s intentions, coupled with his own careful assessment: there were more reasons for Damen to keep Laurent alive than to harm him. For now. Perhaps, when they drew nearer to the border, sleep would not come so quickly. But even then, Laurent was a bit surprised that he was coming to find it more and more difficult to believe that Damen would ever harm him while he slept. The man seemed very preoccupied with ensuring that his enemies held weapons before he attacked them.</p><p>In the throes of deep sleep, he had the familiar dream, and stood once more in the tent at Marlas. He watched, silently, as he always did, while Auguste rode away. He tried to move, as he always did, and found his limbs frozen. Horror mounted as his brother’s golden figure grew smaller; soon the sea would emerge, and swallow him up, and turn to blood. Laurent watched and waited, with bated breath. But before the dream could reach its conclusion, there came a hand, gentle, on his shoulder.</p><p>Laurent came awake instantly at the touch, and found Damen sitting at the edge of the bed. It was his hand, resting on Laurent's shoulder. Sleep still clung to Laurent, weighted and thick, and he struggled to push it aside as he sat up. There was no fear when he saw the man leaning over him, only mild confusion—which was foolish. Fear kept you sharp.</p><p>“We have to go,” said Damen. There was a set of sounds from downstairs, of the innkeeper, roused, unbolting the inn door. Laurent understood immediately what was happening.</p><p>“This is becoming a habit,” he said, drily, but he was already pushing himself up from the bed. While Damen threw open the shutters to the balcony, Laurent pulled on his shirt and jacket—though he had no time to do up any of the lacings, which trailed as he followed Damen.</p><p>The shutters opened on a cool, fluttering night breeze, and a two-story drop.</p><p>It was not going to be as easy as it had been in the brothel. Jumping was not possible. The drop to street level might not be fatal, but it was forbidding enough to break bone. There were voices now, perhaps from the stairs. They both looked up. The outside of the inn was plastered, and there were no handholds. Laurent’s gaze shifted, looking for a way to climb. They saw it at the same time: beside the next balcony, there was a section of stripped plaster, with jutting stone and a set of places to grip, a clear passage to the roof.</p><p>Except that the next balcony was perhaps eight feet away, further than was comfortable considering that the jump had to be made from a standing start. Laurent judged the distance carefully, calmly.</p><p>“Can you make it?” Damen asked him.</p><p>“Probably,” said Laurent, honestly. It was impossible to be sure, but the answer appeared good enough to satisfy Damen.</p><p>They both swung themselves over the railing of the balcony. Damen went first. He was taller, which gave him an advantage, and he did not appear at all worried about broaching the distance. He jumped and landed well, catching the railing of the next balcony and pausing for a moment as he glanced towards the shutters of the room, ensuring he had gone unheard by its occupants. Appearing satisfied, he quickly drew himself over the railing and onto the balcony.</p><p>Laurent swallowed, judging the distance once more. He was quite a bit shorter than Damen, and he had not the advantage of legs built like tree trunks to propel him across. He was agile, but it was a long way, and things like height mattered, as did the propulsion that came from muscle power. Across the way, Damen was staring at him, a look of slightly panicked concern on his features, as if, having safely crossed himself, he was only now judging the danger for Laurent.</p><p>Well—it was a bit insulting. Damen did not have to look <em>quite </em>so terrified as he considered the prospect of Laurent attempting the leap. “Probably,” had been the most accurate summary of the situation, meaning more likely than not. Laurent steeled himself, and jumped.</p><p>He landed badly. Damen reached immediately to grab hold of him and Laurent could do nothing but surrender his weight to Damen’s grasp, clutching at him. He’d had the wind knocked out of him by the railing of the balcony. He didn’t resist when Damen hauled him up and over, nor did he immediately pull away, just stood breathless in Damen’s arms. Damen’s hands were on Laurent’s waist; Laurent had Damen’s shirt fisted in his fingers. They froze, too late.</p><p>Inside the room, the previously clear sounds of Volo getting his money’s worth had stopped.</p><p>“I heard something,” said the house boy, distinctly. “On the balcony.”</p><p>“It’s the wind,” said Volo. “I’ll keep you warm.” Laurent released a breath. He <em>knew </em>he liked Volo.</p><p>But the boy protested. “No, it was something,” he insisted, voice reedy, “Go and—”</p><p>The rustle of sheets and the sound of the bed creaking—</p><p>Laurent scanned their surroundings, judged their options in a matter of seconds, and acted reflexively, shoving into Damen with all the force he could muster. He heard the breath leave him in a rush as his back hit the wall beside the shuttered window. Laurent followed, untwisting his fingers from the shirt to press his arms on either side of Damen, pinning him to the wall with his body. They were crushed together, as closely as possible.</p><p>It was not a moment too soon. The shutters swung open, trapping them in the small triangle of space between the wall and the back of the open shutter. They were hidden as precariously as a cuckold behind an open door. Neither of them moved. Neither of them breathed. If Laurent moved back even a half inch, he’d bump the shutter. To prevent this, he was plastered so tightly against Damen that he could feel every crease in the fabric of his garments, through which, the warm, transmitted heat of his body.</p><p>“There’s no one here,” said Volo.</p><p>“I was sure I heard something,” said the boy.</p><p>Laurent’s ear was level with Damen’s shoulder; he could hear the other man’s heart pounding rapidly. It was difficult to keep his own breathing quiet and steady, as adrenaline coursed through his body.</p><p>“Just a cat, maybe. You can make it up to me,” said Volo.</p><p>“Mmm, all right,” said the boy. “Come back to bed.”</p><p>Volo turned from the balcony. But of course there was a final act to the farce. In his eagerness to resume his activities, Volo left the shutter open, trapping them there.</p><p>Laurent might have laughed, if their position had not been so precarious. The whole length of his body was flush against Damen’s, thigh to thigh, chest against chest—or, more accurately, chest against ribcage. Every line of Damen’s body was tense; he was clearly repulsed by their proximity. Laurent thought, with a bit of annoyance, that it was really not his fault—Damen’s bulk may have been helpful in crossing the balconies, but it now presented an irritating obstacle.</p><p>Laurent shifted slightly to look behind himself and view the proximity of the shutter. It was as he feared: there was no way for them to squeeze out of hiding without giving themselves away. He shifted back, and found his eyes level with Damen’s chin. In a very quiet, very careful voice, he said, “This is…not ideal.”</p><p>It was an understatement. They were hidden from Volo, but they could be seen very clearly from the other balcony, and the men pursuing them were somewhere in the inn by now. They would not remain hidden for long.</p><p>Damen said, quietly, “Look up. If you can climb, we can get out that way.”</p><p>“Wait until they start fucking,” Laurent said even more softly, murmuring the words into the curve of Damen’s neck as his ear was, irritatingly, just out of reach. “They’ll be distracted.”</p><p>Just as he finished speaking, there was an unmistakable moan from the boy inside the room, “<em>There. There—put it in me right there—”</em> and in just a moment more they would be able to escape, unnoticed—</p><p> —the door to Volo’s room slammed open.</p><p>“They’re in here!” called an unfamiliar man’s voice. One of their followers, no doubt. Laurent realized immediately what was happening, and could not stop the disbelieving smile from spreading across his face.</p><p>There was a moment of total confusion, an indignant squawk from the house boy, a shouted protest from Volo, “Hey, let go of him!” as the boy was separated from the bed. Laurent tried, desperately, to suppress the laughter rising in his throat.</p><p>“Stay back, old man. It isn’t your business. This is the Prince of Vere.”</p><p>“But—I only paid three coppers for him,” said Volo, sounding confused.</p><p>“And you should probably put some pants on,” said the man, adding awkwardly, “Your Highness.”</p><p>“What?” said the boy.</p><p>It took every effort of will to prevent sound from leaving his mouth as Laurent shook, helplessly, with silent laughter.</p><p>There came the sound of at least two more sets of footsteps striding into the room, greeted with: “Here he is. We found him fucking this derelict, disguised as the tavern prostitute.”</p><p>“This <em>is </em>the tavern prostitute. You idiot, the Prince of Vere is so celibate I doubt he even touches himself once every ten years. You. We’re looking for two men. One was a barbarian soldier, a giant animal. The other was blond. Not like this boy. Attractive.”</p><p>“There was a blond lord’s pet downstairs,” said Volo. “Brained like a pea and easy to hoodwink. I don’t think he was the Prince.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t call him blond. More like mousy. And he wasn’t that attractive,” said the boy, sulkily.</p><p>The shaking, progressively, had worsened.</p><p>“Stop enjoying yourself,” Damen murmured, “We’re going to be killed, any minute.”</p><p>“Giant animal,” said Laurent. It was not his fault if the barbarian did not have a sense of humor.</p><p>“Stop it.”</p><p>Inside the room: “Check the other lodgings. They’re here somewhere.” The footsteps retreated.</p><p>“Can you give me a boost?” said Laurent, wrangling the laughter so that he could whisper, “We need to get off this balcony.”</p><p>Damen cupped his hands, and Laurent used them as a stepping stone, pushing himself up to the first handhold.</p><p>More lightly built than Damen, but possessing the upper body strength that came with extensive sword practice, Laurent climbed quickly and silently. Damen, turning carefully in the confined space in order to face the wall, soon followed.</p><p>It wasn’t a difficult climb, and it was only a matter of minutes before they had both pulled themselves up and onto the roof. The sleeping town of Nesson-Eloy splayed out before them, the sky above, a handful of scattered stars. Laurent’s eyes sparked with mischief, the ridiculous grin still on his face as he thought of Volo and the poor house boy. He was surprised to see his expression twinned on Damen’s face, who was laughing a little breathlessly now that they were no longer in danger of immediate discovery.</p><p>“I think we’re safe,” said Damen. “Somehow, no one saw us.”</p><p>“But I told you. It’s the game I like,” said Laurent, and with the toe of his boot he deliberately pushed a loose roof rile until it slid off the rooftop and shattered in the street below.</p><p>“They’re on the roof!” came the call from below.</p><p>This time, it was a chase. They fled over rooftops, dodging chimneys. It was half obstacle course, half steeplechase. The tiles beneath their feet appeared and disappeared, opening up into narrow alleyways that must be leaped over. The visibility was poor. The levels were all uneven. They went up one side of a rood slope, and, slipping and sliding, came down the other.</p><p>Below, their pursuers ran too, over smooth streets with no loose tiles to threaten a sprain or a fall, flanking them. Laurent sent another roof tile into the street, aimed this time. From below, a yelp of alarm. When they found themselves on another balcony on their way over a narrow street, Damen tipped over a flowerpot. Beside him, Laurent unpinned some hanging laundry and dropped it; they saw the ghostly white entangle someone below and become a writhing shape, before they sped on.</p><p>They sprang from rooftop ledge to balcony and onto a crossway across a narrow street. The careening chase across the skyline called on years of difficult training in Laurent, on reflexes, speed, and stamina. Lightly built and agile, he was well made for such an obstacle course. Damen, too, was able to keep up—even with his towering height and rolling mass of musculature, he was light on his feet. Above them, the sky was lightening. Below them, the town was waking up.</p><p>They could not stay on the rooftops forever—they risked broken limbs, siege and dead ends—so when they had drawn a precious minute or two ahead, they used the time to make their way down a drainpipe onto the street.</p><p>There was no one in sight when they touched the cobblestones, and they had a clear run. Laurent, who knew the town, took the lead, and after two turns they were in a new quarter. Laurent led them down a narrow, arched passageway between two houses, and they paused there a moment, to catch their breath. The street that the passage fed into was one of the main streets of Nesson, already peopled. These grey hours of dawn were some of the busiest in any town.</p><p>Laurent was breathless, exhilarated, brilliant with the run. Beside him, Damen stood with his palm flat against the wall, chest rising and falling. “This way,” Laurent said, moving out towards the street. But he found that Damen had caught his arm, and was holding him back.</p><p>“Wait. It’s too exposed. You stand out, in this light. Your mousy hair’s like a beacon.”</p><p>With a wordless smile, Laurent pulled Volo’s woolen cap from his belt.</p><p>Damen blinked as he watched Laurent fit the cap snugly onto his head, covering his hair completely. There was an expression across Damen’s face that Laurent could not even begin to decipher.</p><p>He said, “We can’t. Didn’t you hear it, earlier? They’ve split up.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“I mean if the idea is to lead them on a merry chase through the town so that they don’t follow your messenger, it’s not working. They’ve split their attention.”</p><p>“I,” Laurent began to say, and paused. The truth was that he had not heard it. He gazed at Damen, realizing once more how this endeavor might have failed if he had been alone. “You have very good ears.”</p><p>“You should go,” said Damen. “I can take care of it.”</p><p>Panic, a wordless fist, gripped Laurent’s heart. “No.”</p><p>“If I wanted to escape,” said Damen, “I could have tonight. While you bathed. While you slept.”</p><p>“I know that,” said Laurent, a bit irritably. He could not shake the unease that came with the idea of splitting up—it felt as if things had shifted, in the light of day. He saw more plainly who stood before him.</p><p>“You can’t be in two places at once,” said Damen, “We need to separate.”</p><p>“It’s too important,” said Laurent.</p><p>“Trust me,” said Damen. As if it were simple.</p><p>Laurent studied him for a long moment without speaking. Of course, Damen’s deduction about the chase had been correct: Laurent needed to lead their followers astray, to ensure his messenger made it safely out of the town. It meant putting his own safety at risk, but that was a gamble Laurent was willing to take. If what Damen said was true, and the men had, in fact, split into two groups, then it would take two separate chases to prevent them from reaching the messenger. And Damen was the only man who could be relied on to go after the group that had split off; no one else had even the faintest idea about what was happening. Laurent supposed he could go after the messenger himself, and leave Damen to guide the other group of men astray—but he had told Jord he would return by mid-morning.</p><p>“We’ll wait for you a day at Nesson,” Laurent said, after running quickly through every available option. “After that, catch up.” They had spent many nights pouring over the map together; Damen knew the route. And if he didn’t return…well, that would be a matter for consideration at another time.</p><p>Damen nodded, and moved away from the wall as Laurent set out onto the main street, his jacket still trailing a few laces, his blond hair hidden under the filthy woolen cap. Laurent did not turn back as he slipped into the crowd, darting quickly through bodies. He put all thoughts of Damen out of his mind: his focus must now be on finishing the chase.</p><p>***</p><p>Laurent noticed immediately when his pursuers caught up. The two men trailed him through the bustling main road; they had been thrown off the scent only briefly by the woolen cap. His jacket, finer than any of the townspeople surrounding him, was still a dead giveaway once spotted.</p><p>He bobbed and wove carefully through the main road, drawing ahead only enough to appear tantalizingly out of reach before he allowed his followers to fall into step behind him once more, leading them through the twisting pathways of the town. He ducked down side streets only to double back to the main road; he crouched behind merchant carts only to leap out when the men had passed, forcing them to turn; he left his fine jacket hanging on a laundry line, replacing it with a less noticeable one. He did not think the man he had stolen from would mind the switch.</p><p>He had no fear for Damen. He was quite certain that the two men he pursued, once caught, would prove little match for him if they decided to put up a fight. Doubts tugged at the back of his mind—about whether Damen would reach the men in time, about whether the messenger would be able to get away, about whether Damen would do what he said at all, instead of just taking off for the hills. He pushed these thoughts away.</p><p>After some time spent leading his pursuers in circles, Laurent set his mind to how he might, once and for all, throw them off his trail. Sufficient time had passed, he was sure, for Damen to make his way out of town. Now the greater obstacle would be finding an opportunity for Laurent to slip away himself, and rendezvous back at camp with his men by mid-morning. He would hate to make Jord worry.</p><p>Despite the debacle in the inn, which might suggest otherwise, his followers were skilled at their job. Laurent had allowed them to tail him for long enough that he could not hope to simply slip away, unnoticed, in a crowd. They would be expecting him to attempt to break off and make for the camp outside of Nesson. Without a horse, they would easily be able to catch him if he abandoned the cover of the town for the sparse brush of the countryside.</p><p>He was just turning this problem over in his mind when he spied a familiar alleyway, with a familiar door at the end of it. Laurent’s lips quirked up in a smile as he remembered the window left open around the back of the building. If he ducked down the alley now, his pursuers would see it; but if he was quick enough, he could dart around to the back of the building and leave them none the wiser. He turned, and made once again for the brothel of Nesson-Eloy.</p><p>***</p><p>The window was, unfortunately, no longer open. It appeared that the Maitresse had realized, at some point in the night, that the prince and his pet had vacated the premises. No matter—it was held shut only by a simple latch, and without the iron grille all it took was a good strong kick to send it crashing open. Laurent slid deftly through and landed on the balls of his feet, brushing dust off his new jacket.</p><p>The Maitresse, however, being an enterprising woman, had put her resources to full use, and had not left the room empty. Laurent could hardly fault her for that. But it meant that he had the unfortunate displeasure of interrupting the glossy-haired woman he had met the night before, who was extraordinarily well occupied with a man that Laurent had decidedly <em>not</em> met the night before. He thought it was a bit early to be so vigorously engaged in the activity which he now found himself witnessing, but supposed he was not in the best place to judge, being an uninvited guest.</p><p>The woman gave a little shriek when she saw him, and promptly tumbled off the bed. The man was a bit slower on the uptake, but looked equally horrified when he spied Laurent, and scrambled frantically to cover himself. Laurent turned, calmly, and shut the window as best he could, seeing that the latch was now broken.</p><p>“Who—what—” gasped the man, at the same time that the woman seemed to recognize Laurent and exclaimed, “Your—”</p><p>“Stop!” Laurent said sharply, cutting her off. He looked pointedly at the man, who had now managed to pull the sheets over himself, and she flushed and fell silent. The man also fell silent, looking thoroughly bewildered.</p><p>“My sincerest apologies for the interruption,” Laurent said genially, “If you could only point me to the Maitresse, I’ll be out of your hair.”</p><p>The man was now beginning to furrow his brow, looking a bit put out. Laurent had no doubt that he would move, eventually, into anger, but before that could happen the glossy-haired woman said quickly, “Furthest door down on the left.”</p><p>Laurent nodded in acknowledgment. She started to bow but seemed to think better of it, stopping herself so that she was only leaning forward awkwardly. Laurent unlatched the door, walked out, and closed it behind him. Through the wood, he heard:</p><p>“What—what was all that about, then?”</p><p>He did not hear whatever murmured excuse the woman gave in response, but from the sounds that resumed as Laurent made his way down the hall, it appeared she had found an adequate means of silencing her client’s questions.</p><p>When he entered the door that the woman had indicated, he found himself confronted with what appeared to be small and homely living quarters. There was a simple bed, pressed into one corner, and a small table sporting a washbasin. Next to the door was a long, wooden desk, behind which was seated the Maitresse. She was squinting at a piece of paper when Laurent entered, and did not look up.</p><p>“Annike, I will not tell you again: you are paid every Thursday, no later and no sooner. Wait for Thursday, or find some other means of buying wine. That butcher seems to have taken a shine to you—perhaps he can do it.”</p><p>“I’ll be sure to relay the message,” said Laurent, with dry amusement. The Maitresse startled slightly, and looked up.</p><p>“Your Highness,” she gasped, standing and making obeisance, “I apologize—I did not realize you intended to return.”</p><p>“I didn’t,” said Laurent, switching to Vaskian, “I am being pursued. I’m afraid I must impose upon your hospitality. You’ll be well-compensated.”</p><p>She answered steadily, using one of the Eastern dialects and showing no surprise at his ability to speak the language, “Of course, Your Highness, anything you need.”</p><p>She had just finished speaking when there came a pounding at the door.</p><p>Laurent met her eye grimly. “That will be them. I need an empty room and one of your girls—quickly.”</p><p>She led him hurriedly to a room down the hall, ushering him in. It was much the same as the other he’d seen: populated sparsely by a bed, a chest, and a threadbare rug. No window, this time.</p><p>A few moments later, the door opened, and a woman entered—it was the blonde from the previous night. She was still wearing the blue dress she’d had on, with the laces trailing from the open front. The look of confusion across her face turned to outright shock as she saw Laurent, who had by now removed his cap and jacket and was in the process of unlacing his shirt.</p><p>“Oh—Your Highness!” She gasped, and began to bow.</p><p>“No time for that,” said Laurent, “Quickly, take off your dress.”</p><p>She blushed furiously, but obeyed, keeping her eyes downcast as Laurent finished undressing himself and shoved his clothing quickly under the bed. This was no time for modesty—the pounding at the door had stopped, and he could hear the distant voices of the Maitresse and two men.</p><p>She had on only a loose shift around her waist, and she smiled coyly at him as the dress fell to pool around her feet. Though she was still blushing bashfully, her voice was soft and sinuous as she said, “What can I—”</p><p>“Give me your dress.” Laurent said. She blinked, and looked up, forgetting her modesty.</p><p>“My dress?”</p><p>“Quickly, and help me lace it.”</p><p>She was too bewildered to ask further questions, and mutely assisted him, deftly lacing the prince into the bodice of the gown. When they were done, he looked down at himself, considering; then, after a moment, snatched up the woolen cap from where it was hidden and stuffed it down the front of the dress, adjusting it until it gave the impression of a smooth curve. It was not a moment too soon—the voices of the Maitresse and her new companions were drawing closer.</p><p>“I would think I’d know it if the <em>crown prince </em>had come to visit one of my girls—” the Maitresse was protesting, indignantly and to little effect. The footsteps drew closer.</p><p>“How do I look?” Laurent whispered to his companion, who was staring at him.</p><p>“I—well, I suppose—” she stammered, entirely unsure what to make of the situation. There was no more time; the disguise would have to do. From outside, there came the unmistakable sound of a door being forced open with a great crash—the room next to theirs. Finding it empty, the footsteps continued, until they stopped at the threshold of their room.</p><p>“Kiss me,” Laurent commanded in a low, urgent voice.</p><p>“What?” said the blonde, who was still staring at him, dazed.</p><p>The men outside pounded on the door. “Hey, is there anyone in there? Open up!”</p><p>Without further preamble, Laurent threw himself back onto the bed, gripping the blonde’s wrist and pulling her down onto his lap. He wrapped one hand around her waist and pressed his mouth hurriedly to hers, reaching up with the other hand to tangle it in her long, draping hair. She released a muffled sound of shock—and the door burst open.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>dream reference is from the prologue I wrote for book one.</p><p>since half of chapters 7 + 8 exclusively follow Damen, I had to come up with my own take on what happened at the brothel--so here's that!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter Eight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His pursuers burst into the room—and froze, promptly, stunned into silence by the scene. Laurent’s companion, after her initial shock, caught on quite quickly to the performance, twining her arms around him and moaning very convincingly. Over her shoulder, Laurent could see the Maitresse blinking as she took in his disguise; luckily, she was also quick on the uptake.</p><p>“Girls!” the Maitresse barked, scolding. The blonde pulled away, pink paint smeared across her lips. She turned to look at the men watching them, with a surprised little exclamation.</p><p>Laurent remembered the words that had been spoken at the inn: <em>the Prince of Vere is so celibate I doubt he even touches himself once every ten years. </em>It was unlikely he would be recognized; still, he had learned that the key to any disguise was often sheer, arrogant boldness.</p><p>He smiled coyly, batting his lashes in what he hoped was an approximation of the looks he’d learned from the whores of Nesson-Eloy, and pitched his voice up.</p><p>“Apologies—I was under the impression we had time for a break. I didn’t realize there would be gentlemen joining us.” He maneuvered the blonde carefully off his lap as he said it, standing.</p><p>One of his pursuers had a scar across his cheek; the other had eyes as grey as a storm cloud. They regarded him warily. He watched their gazes rake over his form, catching on the narrow waist and the curve of his chest. Volo’s cap was coming in handy in more ways than one, it seemed.</p><p>“We have reason to believe the prince of Vere is hiding somewhere in this establishment.” Said the grey-eyed man.</p><p>Before Laurent could respond, the blonde piped up eagerly from where she had reclined, indolent, on the bed. “I don’t see why he’d hide—we’d happily welcome him.” An amused smile played at the corner of her lips—she seemed to be enjoying the act.</p><p>“Clearly, you can see that the Prince isn’t here. Unless you believe that my girls have stuffed him into the trunk.” The Maitresse cut in, testily. The grey-eyed man flushed, and moved to leave; the scarred man was not so easily convinced. He leveled a narrow-eyed gaze at Laurent.</p><p>“They say he has blue eyes, and blonde hair. Much like your woman here.”</p><p>Laurent’s pulse accelerated, but he kept his coy smile and calm demeanor. “If you want to see what’s under my dress,” he said, approaching the man, “You’ll have to pay.” They were face to face now; Laurent leaned in and spoke in a lover’s whisper: “And I’m <em>very </em>expensive.” He trailed a finger up the man’s arm; at this point his pursuers were both red-faced.</p><p>“I’m—sure that won’t be necessary,” the man said, swallowing hard. He turned to the Maitresse and said stiffly, “We’ll need to check the rest of the rooms.” As they made to leave, Laurent murmured thoughtfully, “There <em>is </em>that broken window across the hall…”</p><p>He watched as the observation sank in; his pursuers made, immediately, for the room he had indicated. Laurent tried not to look too amused as the glossy-haired woman and her poor partner were interrupted for the second time that morning. The two men exclaimed over the broken window, furtively determining that this must have been how the Prince made his escape. When the glossy-haired woman confirmed that she had, in fact, seen a man go through the window earlier—failing to specify which direction he had gone—Laurent’s pursuers rushed to leave the brothel, cursing their wily mark for the head start he had gained.</p><p>Having successfully shaken his pursuers, Laurent returned the dress to its rightful owner, who told him that her name was Annike and she had absolutely no idea what was going on, but it was an honor to serve her prince. She added that it had been the most fun she’d had since she’d started working at the brothel. Privately, Laurent thought that reflected poorly on the men of Nesson-Eloy, but he thanked Annike and left her with ample coin for wine.</p><p>Jacket restored and cap returned to his head, Laurent had a very interesting conversation with the Maitresse, who shared that she had a cousin who rode with one of the border tribes. Upon further inquiry, it turned out that she was also in possession of a horse, stabled at a nearby inn. Laurent left the Maitresse with enough gold to buy five new horses, thanked her for her help, and collected the steed from the seedy establishment before setting off to return to camp. He was smiling as he left the town; it appeared he would make his mid-morning deadline, after all.</p><p>***</p><p>The smile slid away as he approached the camp. He was not met by outriders, which boded ill, and as he drew nearer there came the unmistakable ring of steel against steel as swords met, coupled with hectic shouting.</p><p>
  <em>The ambush. </em>
</p><p>Except, as he swept his gaze over the outskirts of the camp, there was no sign of an enemy force. His borrowed mount, untrained for war or anything other than mild riding, began to buck and whinny, agitated by the noise. Laurent paused to dismount under a spindly tree, the branches of which served well enough to affix the horse’s reins and keep her in place. Laurent was very aware of the bare space at his hip where the weight of a sword would normally hang. Pets and prostitutes did not typically carry arms; in service of discretion, he had left himself vulnerable.</p><p>It was impossible to tell when the fighting had started. Laurent crept carefully around the outskirts of the camp, making for the armory tent. In the absence of any sign of an outside force, he had deduced that the cause of the violence must be an insurrection—paid for, no doubt, by the Regent. While this was a relief in that it limited the quantity of foes the company now faced, it meant also that Laurent had no immediate means of determining which of his men he might trust. Arming himself, then, was the most pressing imperative.</p><p>Anger, hot and seething, pulsed in Laurent’s veins as he picked his way around the demolished lines of the tents. He should have expected this; he had been foolish to assume that the men in Nesson-Eloy would be the only layer to his uncle’s plot. If the Regent’s plans were anything, they were multifaceted. It had been childish, to allow himself to be swept up in the—excitement. In the satisfaction, in the mistaken feeling that he was building something strong enough to hold under attack from his uncle’s oblique machinations. Everything was fragile, and nothing more so than this campaign.  </p><p>He had almost made it to the armory tent when he became suddenly aware of the soft sound of footfalls behind him. He heard the awful scrape of sword against scabbard, the harsh bite of wind as steel swung through the air, and turned, bracing himself—</p><p>—only to see Aimeric, white-faced, run Orlant through with his sword. Orlant, whose own blade was raised as if the strike, released the hilt of his weapon. It clattered to the ground with a sound like bones hitting the earth. He stood, swaying, for a moment, face paling even as blood bubbled up red as roses from his lips. He managed to choke out, as if in astonishment, one word—<em>You—</em>before falling heavily to his knees.</p><p>Aimeric, whose hands were a white-knuckled fist on his blade, stumbled forward with the momentum. He released the weapon, still embedded in Orlant’s thick barrel chest, as the man slumped sideways. He was dead.</p><p>For a moment, both Laurent and Aimeric did nothing but stare at the man who lay before them. Thoughts darted like fish in Laurent’s mind, scaled and slippery, too quickly for him to grasp onto any one of them.</p><p>“I—I had to,” Aimeric said, numbly, “He was…he was going to kill you.” His fine, aristocratic hands had toughened, developing calluses over the weeks of hard training, fingernails lined with dirt. Laurent saw that they were shaking. He realized his own breathing was shallow, his own body trembling with suppressed tension, like a wire pulled taut.</p><p>“Pick up his sword,” he commanded Aimeric. In the same breath, Laurent moved to Orlant’s body and withdrew the blade. He had to brace one foot against Orlant’s chest to do so—Aimeric had put the full force of his body behind the blow, lodging the weapon deeply in layers of fat and muscle and sinew. It was freed with a wet, sickening slide, dripping blood onto the grass.</p><p>Orlant’s eyes were glassy, staring blankly ahead. When Laurent was fifteen and struggling to re-form the Prince’s guard, Orlant was one of the first men who’d joined. He had been loyal, one of the best men in the company, for five years. Laurent hardened himself as he stared down at the man’s craggy face, with the mouth that turned up at the corners as if it had been molded to smile. He wondered how much money it had taken for the Regent to turn Orlant. He wondered how much coin those five years of loyalty had been worth.</p><p>Aimeric was still muttering, rooted to the spot, “I had to do it…I had to…”</p><p>Laurent bent to pick up Orlant’s dropped sword and shoved it roughly into Aimeric’s hands.</p><p>“You did well.” He said flatly. It was enough to snap Aimeric out of his daze—he turned to Laurent with wide, wet eyes.</p><p>“Follow me,” Laurent said. He turned and made his way to put down the insurrection, without checking to see that Aimeric followed.</p><p>***</p><p>Laurent heard the full story from Jord, after it was over. It had begun mid-morning, in his absence. There had been a small handful of instigators. To Laurent, it was obvious that the uprising was planned, that the instigators were paid, and that their plan relied on the fact that the rest of the Regent’s men, rabble-rousers, thugs, and mercenaries looking for an outlet, would take the first excuse to lash out at the Prince’s men, and join in.</p><p>They would have, two weeks ago.</p><p>Two weeks ago, the troop had been a rabble split into two factions. They had not developed the fledgling camaraderie that now held them together; they hadn’t been sent to their sleeping rolls night after night exhausted from trying to outdo one another at some mad, impossible exercise; finding to their surprise after they had stopped cursing their Prince’s name, how much they had enjoyed themselves.</p><p>If Govart had been in charge, it would have been pandemonium. It would have been faction against faction, the troops splintered, fractured, and bearing grudges, and captained by a man who did not wish the company to survive.</p><p>Instead, the uprising was swiftly thwarted. It was bloody but brief. At the end of it, they found that no more than two dozen men were dead. There was minor damage to tents and stores. Of all the instigators, Orlant had been the only man from the Prince’s guard. This revelation was a stone in Laurent’s stomach; he was not sure if it should make him feel better or worse.</p><p>He allowed Jord to handle the cleanup; if Jord had not been able to rally the men as he did in Laurent’s absence, there would have been many more casualties, and Laurent saw no reason to take the reins from him now that it was over. The men needed to see their captain taking charge. He pulled Jord aside only briefly after initial orders were given to the men—see to the wounded, start building the funeral pyres, take inventory of the damages—to receive his report. As the Captain was leaving, Laurent said,</p><p>“See to Aimeric, if you have time.”</p><p>Jord had stiffened, then attempted to speak casually. “Aimeric?”</p><p>“He’s not well,” Laurent said, softly. The budding relationship had not gone unnoticed—half the camp, it seemed, had been hedging bets on who’d be first to get a leg over the young aristocrat. And Laurent knew Jord; he was a good, steady man. The right man to help Aimeric, after what he’d had to do.</p><p>Jord nodded, face twisted into an indecipherable expression. They had not discussed Orlant, past a brief retelling of the encounter that had led to the man’s death. None of the Prince’s guard had said anything as his body was carried to one of the pyres.</p><p>When Jord had gone, Laurent called a servant to bring fresh clothes. He abandoned the stolen jacket, now flecked with blood, and Volo’s filthy cap. The previous night felt far away; the warm glow of the fire, the exhilaration of the rooftop chase, the breathless laughter. Laurent felt unmoored, like a man just woken from a dream. He tried not to wonder what had happened to his messenger. There was no use in speculating about matters outside of his control.</p><p>He threw himself into preparations for their continued ride to the border, oversaw the ashen-faced men as they cleared the remnants of his uncle’s insidious, venomous ploy, and met with his Captain once more to discuss slight changes in their route. He worked, unruffled, through the day, presenting outwardly a mask of statuesque calm. He would not allow his grip on these men to falter, would remain stone-cold, iron-fisted. He would make no further mistakes.</p><p>The sun was beginning to sink in the sky when there was a small commotion outside the tent. Laurent heard the pounding hoofbeats of a rider, the desperate breathing of an exhausted horse, the curious murmuring of men. He exited through the canvas flap. It was Damen.</p><p>The man was breathing hard, sweat beaded across his brow. His shirt was flecked with blood; his knuckles were raw and red. The horse he guided into the camp was clearly exhausted, blowing hard through flared nostrils, its flanks heaving. Its neck was shiny and dark with sweat, and further patterned with a cross-hatching of raised veins and capillaries. Damen’s eyes scanned the curious men who had gathered, and locked on Laurent.</p><p>“You’re alive,” he said. The words were weak with relief.</p><p>“I’m alive,” said Laurent. They were gazing at one another. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back.”</p><p>“I came back,” said Damen.</p><p>Anything else he might have said was forestalled by the arrival of Jord.</p><p>“You missed the excitement,” said Jord. “But you’re in time for the clean up. It’s over.”</p><p>“It’s not over,” said Damen.</p><p>And he told them what he knew.</p><p>***</p><p>It was a three-stage assault: after the attack on Laurent in the town, there would follow an uprising within the Prince’s troop. If troop and Prince somehow survived and managed, in their damaged state, to continue south, they would fall to a mercenary ambush in the hills.</p><p>It was a tactic that reeked of his uncle. All of this was: the convoluted trap that reached across the landscape to splinter Laurent from his troop and his messenger, so that to save one meant to sacrifice the other. Laurent had evaded the first two pieces of the plan narrowly—would not have evaded them, he knew, had it not been for Damen. But there was still the matter of the mercenaries camped in the hills of Nesson, waiting for his troop to move out.</p><p>“We don’t have to ride through the pass,” said Jord. “We can detour and find another way south. These mercenaries may have been hired to lay ambush, but I doubt they’ll follow an army through the heart of its own lands.”</p><p>They sat in Laurent’s tent. When Damen had given his warning of the ambush, Jord had responded as if to a blow. Yet he had squared his shoulders and followed Laurent and Damen into the tent to discuss how best to save the lives of their men.</p><p>Laurent, for his part, had kept his face carefully neutral. It was what he had expected all along, after all: an ambush. The series of traps that led to the finale had not been perfectly anticipated, but neither had they caught him entirely by surprise. He had spent years playing his uncle’s games at court, and he would not be thwarted simply because the landscape upon which the game was carried out had changed. He turned all his attention to the problem at hand, considering the map spread out on the table before them.</p><p>Across from him, Damen passed a hand over his face as if trying to brush away the exhaustion which so clearly weighed on him. He said, “No. I don’t think we should detour. I think we should face them. Now. Tonight.”</p><p>“Tonight? We’ve barely recovered from the bloodshed this morning,” said Jord.</p><p>“I know that. They know that. If you want to have any chance of taking them by surprise, it has to be tonight.” Damen released a breath, brow furrowed as if struggling to grasp at words, and said, “These men can fight. They just—need to know it. You don’t have to let the threat of attack chase you halfway across the mountains. You can stand and fight. It’s not an army, it’s a group of mercenaries small enough to camp in the hills without being noticed.”</p><p>“They’re big hills,” said Jord. And then: “If you’re right, they’re camped and watching us with scouts. The second we ride out, they’ll know it.”</p><p>“That’s why our best chance is to do it now. We’re not expected, and we’ll have the cover of night.”</p><p>Jord was shaking his head. “Better to avoid the fight.”</p><p>Laurent, who had allowed this argument to develop, now with a slight gesture indicated that it should cease. He studied Damen, considering the problem. He thought about how Damen had urged him to make an immediate move against Govart, instead of waiting. He thought about how Damen had pulled the iron grille out of the wall with his bare hands.</p><p>“I prefer to think my way out of traps,” said Laurent, “rather than use brute force to simply smash through.”</p><p>Damen seemed to deflate, nodding and beginning to rise. But Laurent wasn’t done.</p><p>“That’s why I think we should fight,” he continued. “It’s the last thing I would ever do, and the last thing that anyone, knowing me, would expect.”</p><p>“Your Highness—” began Jord.</p><p>“No,” said Laurent. “I have made my decision. Call in Lazar. And Huet, he knows the hills. We plan the fight.”</p><p>Jord obeyed, and for a brief moment Damen and Laurent were left alone together.</p><p>“I didn’t think you’d say yes,” said Damen.</p><p>Laurent said, “I have recently learned that sometimes it is better to simply smash a hole in the wall.”</p><p>***</p><p>There was no time, then, for anything but preparations.</p><p>They were to ride out at nightfall, as Laurent announced when he addressed the men. To strike with any chance of success they must work swiftly, as they had never worked. There was a great deal to prove. They had just had their nose bloodied, and now was the moment when they either crawled away snivelling or proved themselves man enough to return the blow and fight.</p><p>It was a succinct speech that seemed equally to rally and infuriate the men, but it certainly had the effect of provoking them into action—of taking the sullen, nervy energy of the troop, forging it into something useable, and directing it outward. Laurent knew how to harness anger.</p><p>Damen had been right. The troop wanted to fight. There was a determination among many of them now that was replacing weariness. Observing the energy that was quickly spreading amongst the men, Laurent hardened his own resolve.</p><p>Fighting at night was not ideal. In the dark, friend and foe were one. In the dark, the terrain took on new importance; the hills of Nesson were rocky and fissured. But, in some ways, it was a standard mission for a small troop. Raids from the Vaskian mountains were troublesome to many townships, not only in Vere, but also in Patras and northern Akielos. It was not uncommon for a commander to be sent with a party to clean raiders out of the foothills.</p><p>The maneuver itself was simple. There were several sites where the mercenaries might be camped. Rather than playing the odds, they were simply going to draw them out. Damen would lead a group of fifty men as bait. With them, they would take wagons that mimicked the appearance of a full troop making an attempt at tiptoeing their way stealthily south, under cover of night.</p><p>When the enemy attacked, they would appear to fall back, and instead lead the way to the remainder of the troop led by Laurent. The two groups would trap the attackers between them, cutting off any escape. Simple.</p><p>Some of the men had experience with this kind of fighting. They were also at least somewhat familiar with night missions. They had been hoisted out of their beds more than once during the time they’d spent at Nesson, and set to work in the dark. Those were their advantages, alongside the hoped for element of surprise that would leave their attackers scrambling and disorganized.</p><p>But there was no time for scouts, and of the men in the troop, only Huet had even a hazy knowledge of this particular piece of ground. Lack of familiarity with the terrain had been a concern from the start. As Laurent watched Damen’s troop ride away, he could only hope they would find it as Huet had done his best to describe.</p><p>***</p><p>Of course, everything went wrong almost immediately. Laurent’s troop, buzzing with anticipation and nervous energy, watched their comrades disappear. They waited to ride out, giving Damen’s men what should have been sufficient time to lure out the mercenaries and double back.</p><p>But there were no mercenaries when Laurent’s men moved out. They were greeted only with empty road; scrubby brush and ridged hills with no sign of life. Laurent could feel the energy of the troop shift, from wary excitement to edgy tension as they rode on with no sign of the other group.</p><p>
  <em>Where were they?</em>
</p><p>And then, suddenly, a stream of black shapes detached from one of the ridged hills, pouring towards them like water. But it wasn’t their own men—it was the mercenaries. As Laurent watched them approach, it became very clear that Damen’s troop was nowhere to be found.</p><p>There was no time to wonder what had happened. The mercenaries were maneuvering to split the troop in half—Laurent called his men to arms, wheeling to face them, bracing himself for the fight—</p><p>—and saw, miraculously, another group of riders come thundering down, riding into the mercenaries attack, wrecking their lines and disrupting their momentum. Whatever had delayed them, Damen’s troop had now arrived. Laurent had time only to release a breath of disbelieving laughter before the fight was on them.</p><p>In the desperate crush of fighting, Laurent saw that their attackers were indeed mercenaries, and that after the initial attack they had little in the way of tactics holding them together. Whether this disorganization was indeed due to the speed with which they had been forced to muster, he couldn’t know. But certainly they had been surprised by the arrival of Damen and his men.</p><p>Their own lines held, their discipline held. Laurent saw Damen taking point, saw Jord and Lazar on the front, saw Aimeric, looking pinched and white, but fighting with the same determination he had shown during the drills when he had pushed himself almost to exhaustion to keep up with the other men. His heart swelled, unexpectedly, with pride in these men.</p><p>Their attackers fell back, or simply fell. Laurent made his way through the battle towards Damen, dispatching those who approached him with precise skill and efficient maneuvers. He found Damen pulling a sword from a man’s chest.</p><p>“I thought you were supposed to be the bait,” said Laurent.</p><p>“There was a change of plan,” said Damen. It seemed that plans were always changing, with him.</p><p>There was another brief burst of close fighting. He felt the shift, the moment when the fight was won. “Form up. Make a line,” Jord was saying. Of the attackers, most were dead. Some had surrendered.</p><p>It was over; perched on the side of a mountain, they had won.</p><p>A cheer went up, and even Laurent found himself caught up in the giddy exhilaration of the men.</p><p>When the lines were formed and heads were counted it turned out they had only lost two men. Apart from that, a few slices, a few cuts. It would give Paschal something to do, the men said. Victory buoyed everyone. Not even the revelation that they must now dig out their supplies and see about making camp could dampen the happy spirits of the men. Those who had ridden with Damen were particularly proud; they hammered each other on the back and boasted to the others about their escape from a rockfall—the reason for their delay. Damen had realized the trap moments before it was sprung, and called the troop back, ensuring they weren’t split off from Laurent’s men and were able to make their rendezvous. When they returned to the site to see about unearthing the wagons, everyone agreed it was impressive.</p><p>In fact, only one of the wagons was smashed beyond repair. It was not the one that held the food or the mouth-rasping wine, another cause for cheer. This time Laurent watched as the men hammered Damen on the back. He had achieved a new status among them as the quick thinker who had saved half the men and all of the wine. They made camp in record time, and when Laurent looked out at the neat lines of the tents, he felt the soft flicker of renewed hope.</p><p>***</p><p>It was not all revelry and relaxation, as there was inventory to be made, repairs to be started, outriders to be assigned, and men to be set on guard. But the campfires were lit, the wine was passed around, and the mood was jovial.</p><p>Laurent pulled Jord aside to see to the business of the two dead men. After the matter had been somberly discussed, he paused, then asked, “And Aimeric?”</p><p>It was in poor taste, to show favoritism towards the man just because he was an aristocrat’s son and was less used to the brutality fighting. But Laurent had watched as Aimeric killed for the first time; he remember himself, thirteen on a battlefield, feeling the world ripped away as he stared down at the blank eyes of a boy not much older than him. It felt all too familiar.</p><p>Jord seemed to understand. “He’ll be alright,” he said, quietly, “He’s tougher than he looks.” Laurent only nodded in response.</p><p>After dismissing Jord, Laurent was confronted with Damen, who had made his way over. He was smiling cheerfully, reveling in the victory. He eyed Laurent’s troubled expression and raised his brows.</p><p>“You’re not celebrating.” He leaned his back against the tree beside Laurent, limbs loose at his sides. The sounds of merriment and success drifted over to them, the men drunk on the euphoria of their first battle won, sleeplessness and bad wine. It would be dawn soon.</p><p>“I’m not used to my uncle miscalculating,” said Laurent, after a pause. It was impossible to fully release the tension that had built up in him; he felt as if he was holding his breath, waiting for the next twist in the Regent’s plan to unfurl.</p><p>“It’s because he’s working at a distance,” said Damen.</p><p>“It’s because of you,” Laurent corrected him.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“He doesn’t know how to predict you,” said Laurent. “After what I did to you in Arles, he thought you’d be—another Govart. Another one of his men. Another one of those men today. Ready to mutiny at a moment’s notice. That was what was supposed to have happened tonight.”</p><p>Laurent’s gaze passed calmly over the troop. He thought of Orlant, who had stood at his side for five years, now only bones and ash. A man he had thought loyal, poisoned by his uncle and warped into a weapon. He turned to look at Damen, who had no reason to be faithful—who the Regent had not even had to twist and reconfigure. Laurent had planted the hatred between them all on his own, had watered it and nurtured it. Yet Damen stood here, and it was Orlant who was dead.</p><p>“Instead, you have saved my life, more than once. You have made fighters of these men, trained them, honed them. Tonight you handed me my first victory. My uncle never dreamed you’d be this kind of asset to me. If he had, he would never have allowed you to ride out of the palace.”</p><p><em>Why? </em>The question was heavy, unspoken, between them. Laurent knew how swallowing poison could corrode, turning blood to acid until only spite was left. <em>Why are you still here? </em>He couldn’t bring himself to say it.</p><p>Damen said, “I should go and help with repairs.”</p><p>He pushed away from the tree, swaying as he stood upright. Laurent reached out, unthinkingly, to clasp his arm. Damen looked down at where their skin met. Laurent could not read the expression in his eyes, could not even begin to understand it.</p><p>“Leave the repairs,” said Laurent, softly. “Get some sleep.”</p><p>“I’m fine,” said Damen.</p><p>“It’s an order,” said Laurent.</p><p>He watched as Damen left, making his way carefully towards the tent they shared. He stayed at the outskirts of the camp, listening to the laughter of his men, watching the fires burn until late into the night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter Nine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>content warning: very very vague references to sexual abuse at the end</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Laurent woke the next morning from a dreamless sleep. The promise of dawn was still on the horizon, the morning light gray and cool. The banked fire from the previous night was now only the last dying breaths of a few embers. He pushed himself up, leaning back on his wrists and feeling the slide of soft cloth as the blankets fell away.</p><p>On the carefully separate pallet, Damen was asleep.</p><p>The exhaustion evident from the previous night had unwound itself as he slept, limbs a careless tumble across the pillows. His brow, so often furrowed when they spoke, was smooth, lips slightly parted, chest rising and falling with soft breaths. He no longer wore the fine Veretian clothes, and at his neck was the gold collar, flickering with the light of the dying embers. On one wrist, thrown at some point in the night over his head, the golden cuff was a heavy weight that pressed into the silk beneath.</p><p>Laurent passed a hand over his face. He remembered, forcefully, the sight of Damen in battle the previous night—the unhesitating way he had cut men down, how he had moved through bodies like water. <em>That is how he killed Auguste. </em>But the memory was bound up in exhilaration, in the relief of seeing Damen ride into battle, of knowing they were fighting for the same thing.</p><p>He thought of the tent at Marlas, but the memory slipped from him and became his own tent, leaning over a map with Damen at his shoulder, Damen’s fingers tugging gently at laces. <em>Attend me. </em>More and more, the past and present seemed to bleed together, a dizzy spiral that was not easily unwound. Laurent felt sick with it.</p><p>He dressed in riding leathers, and made his way out into the camp. The men were still waking, in good spirits as they began the duties that came with sunrise. The company was in peak condition after Nesson. The wagons were repaired, and Paschal had patched up the cuts, and no one had been smashed by a rock. More than that. The mood from last night had carried over into the day; adversity had drawn the men together.</p><p>The pieces were all set. They would arrive at the border intact. Once there, Laurent suspected, they would discover that there had been some skirmish—a raid on an Akielon town answered with forces sent to crush some small Veretian village. In his nights spent studying maps with Damen, Laurent had even narrowed down the possible sites of attack to a handful of places.</p><p>He had already initiated his countermove. The initial messages and gifts had been received by the Vaskian border tribe led by the woman Halvik which, according to Vannes, comprised the most formidable force of mounted warriors. But it was impossible to know whether this plan would successfully prevent the Regent’s war.</p><p>Either way, there would be a fight, bigger and uglier than the one at Nesson. The victory of the previous night was heartening, and Laurent was glad to see the men buoyed by their success. Yet he found himself unable to give in entirely to the relaxed camaraderie he observed now throughout the rows of tents. He was all too aware of how much he was still in the dark when it came to his uncle’s plots, unable to discern the entire picture of what awaited them at Ravenel. He could only hope that the extra weeks of preparation would be enough.</p><p>When Laurent returned to the tent, it was nearing mid-day. He was a bit surprised to see Damen, still sleeping, peacefully sprawled across the pallet. As Laurent entered, he saw the man stir, slowly emerging from the heavy cocoon of sleep.</p><p>“Good morning. No, I don’t need anything.” Laurent’s voice was lazy, amused, “Dress and report to Jord. We ride out when repairs are done.”</p><p>“Good morning,” was all Damen said, after sitting up and passing a hand over his face. He gazed up at Laurent, still blinking away sleep.</p><p>Laurent raised his brows and said, “Shall I carry you? It’s at least five paces to the tent flap.”</p><p>Damen smiled ruefully, rising, and Laurent turned away. There was a sharp and painful twist of the heart; it was all wrong, between them. More and more, there were moments where he forgot who he was speaking to.</p><p>***</p><p>The first of Halvik’s messengers came the next morning.</p><p>Since the palace, Laurent had dispatched and greeted riders in a steady stream. Some bore missives from the local Veretian nobility, offering resupply or hospitality. Some were scouts or messengers carrying information. This very morning Laurent had sent a man flying back to Nesson, with money and thanks, to return the horse lent to Damen by the cloth merchant, Charls, that he had met at the inn.</p><p>But this rider was nothing like that. Dressed in leathers with no sign of crest or livery, riding a good but plain horse, and to the visible surprise of the men—pushing back a heavy cloak—she was a woman.</p><p>“Have her brought to my tent,” said Laurent. “The slave will act as chaperone.”</p><p>The woman, who was perhaps forty and had a face like a crag, did not look at all amorous—women in the first place presented no challenge to Laurent's self-control. But the Veretian distaste  for bastardry and the act that sired it was so strong that Laurent could not speak with any woman in private without an escort.</p><p>Inside the tent, the woman made obeisance, offering a cloth-wrapped gift. Laurent nodded for Damen to take the parcel, and place it on the table.</p><p>“Rise,” he said, addressing her in an Eastern dialect of Vaskian.</p><p>There was no way to be entirely sure if Damen could understand them—but Laurent doubted that he would have given any concentrated study to the specific dialects of Vask. Patras was Akielos’ closest ally, so of course Damen could speak Patran; Vere, Akielos’ greatest enemy, so Laurent supposed it made some sense that Damen spoke such flawless Veretian. But Vask remained largely neutral when it came to foreign relations, and even if he had some understanding of the language used at court, the dialects of the mountain tribes were so far removed that they required their own dedicated study to decipher.</p><p>Laurent spoke briefly with the messenger, in a steady back and forth. She was the cousin of the Maitresse, and she told him slyly that the gift was a sign of goodwill and the fond memories they had shared in Nesson. Their discussion after that was promising; Halvik was open to negotiations, willing to consider Laurent’s proposal. If Laurent wanted to guarantee safe passage, however, he would need to meet with Halvik personally. Laurent agreed to speak with another messenger the following evening, sending the first woman away with information about where his men would be camped the following evening.</p><p>After she left, he turned to Damen. The man was staring at the package, puzzled.</p><p>“You can open it if you like,” said Laurent. The cloth-wrapped parcel was conspicuous on the table.</p><p>Damen paused to read the message written on the scrap of parchment that fluttered out of the parcel. He blinked; his brow furrowed slightly.</p><p>Curious, he unwrapped another layer of cloth to reveal more cloth: blue and ornate, it spilled out over his hands. The dress was familiar. Laurent smiled dryly, appreciating the woman’s sense of humor. It was Annike’s dress, the one he had worn, to great effect, as a disguise.</p><p>“You went back to the brothel,” said Damen. As he looked between dress and parchment, new confusion broke over his features. “You didn’t <em>wear—</em>?”</p><p>Laurent sat back in his chair. He kept his gaze coolly immaculate, allowing Damen to draw his own conclusions. “It was an interesting morning. I don’t usually have the chance to enjoy that kind of company. You know my uncle doesn’t like them.”</p><p>“Prostitutes?” said Damen.</p><p>“Women,” said Laurent.</p><p>Damen said, “He must find it difficult to negotiate with the Empire.”</p><p>“Vannes is our delegate. He needs her, and he resents that he needs her, and she knows it,” said Laurent. It was why she had been so willing to ally herself with the Prince.</p><p>“It’s been two days,” said Damen. “The news that you survived Nesson won’t have reached him yet.”</p><p>“This wasn’t his end game,” said Laurent. “That will happen at the border.”</p><p>“You know that he’s going to do,” said Damen.</p><p>“I know what I would do,” said Laurent.</p><p>***</p><p>Around them, the landscape started to change.</p><p>The townships and villages that they passed, speckling the hills, took on a different aspect: long, low rooftops and other architectural hints that were unmistakably Vaskian. The influence of trade with Vask was strong in this region. Especially in summer—the trickles of trade swelled in the warmer months and tended to dry up in the winter. They were riding, also, into the territory of the mountain clans. They entered villages both for trade and raiding, in equal parts. No one traveled these stretches of road without a guard.</p><p>The days were getting hotter, and the nights were hotter as well. They rode south, making steady progress. They were a neat column now, the front riders efficiently clearing the road, leading the occasional wagon to one side to let them ride by. They were two days out from Acquitart, and the people in this region knew their Prince, and sometimes came out to line the roads, greeting him with warm and happy expressions. It made Laurent’s throat close up; it was too reminiscent of the way they lined the streets when Auguste rode with his company to Marlas. Laurent remembered staring at his brother with same awe as these people, cheering the golden crown prince as he rode to defend their borders. They wore the same expressions now, gazing up at him.</p><p>The past was heavy in the air, in the faces of these people. Laurent remained cold and impassive, staring at the road ahead. He was not Auguste. He would never be Auguste. The reality of this fact was sharp as a knife in his side, and he clung to the sting of it. <em>I’m going to live, </em>he told himself, fiercely, <em>I’m going to live and return to see these faces again. </em>If he could survive long enough to make his way back to Arles—perhaps then, he could greet the cheers of his citizens with proud regality. Perhaps then he would be deserving of the praise.</p><p>***</p><p>The second Vaskian woman rode into camp the following evening, and this one did not come to deliver a dress.</p><p>Laurent gave Damen an inventory of items to retrieve from the wagons, wrap up in cloth and place into the woman’s saddlebags: three finely detailed silver drinking bowls, a casket filled with spices, bolts of silks, a set of women’s jewelry and finely carved combs.</p><p>“What are these?” Damen asked, a belligerent note to his voice.</p><p>“Gifts.”</p><p>“You mean bribes,” he said, later, frowning.</p><p>Vere was on better terms with the mountain people than Akielos or even Patras, due largely to the elaborate system of payments and bribes. In exchange for funding from Vere, Vaskians refrained from raiding the Veretian villages along the border. Laurent’s uncle, an enterprising man, used the payments also to nudge border tribes towards raiding in specific locations—most often in the North of Akielos. Laurent had thought it clever, when he was younger. An efficient use of resources to weaken an enemy. Now, knowing what he would likely soon face, he was more inclined to sympathize with the sour look across Damen’s face as he packed away the gifts.</p><p>The packages were stored, the meeting with Halvik set, and the woman rode away happily with her king’s ransom in silver and jewelry. Damen watched all this transpire, eyes narrowed and darting quickly between the messenger and Laurent. But he asked no questions.</p><p>The next night, alone in the tent, Laurent said:</p><p>“As we draw closer to the border, I think it would be safer—more private—to hold our discussions in your language rather than mine.”</p><p>He said it in carefully pronounced Akielon, struggling a bit to wrap his mouth around the clipped vowels.</p><p>Damen stared at him. His lips were parted slightly, as if Laurent had said something shocking.</p><p>“What is it?” said Laurent. His grasp of Akielon was limited to the lessons he had growing up in court; he reviewed the sentence he had just constructed, trying to decipher what error he may have made.           </p><p>“Nice accent,” said Damen, as the corner of his mouth turned up in an amused grin.</p><p>Laurent narrowed his eyes.</p><p>“You mean in case of eavesdroppers,” said Damen, watching Laurent’s face to see whether he understood.</p><p>Steadily: “Yes.”</p><p>And so they talked. Laurent’s vocabulary hit its limits when it came to military terms and maneuvers, but Damen filled in the gaps. His childhood lessons at court had supplied Laurent with a well-stocked armory of elegant phrases and bitchy remarks, but he had never actually needed to speak in Akielon about anything practical. It was the language of barbarians; it was not used in Vere.</p><p>Damen could not hide his amusement as they spoke, which only made Laurent more determined to pick his way through the Akielon language. He could not rid himself entirely of his Veretian accent, unintentionally blurring consonants and lilting through words, stressing sometimes the incorrect syllables. The Akielon language was abrupt, clipped and straightforward; it was like the different of a blaring horn to the soft, sinous notes of a harp.</p><p>Laurent braced himself against the frustration he felt, attempting to rearrange the configuration of tongue and teeth to imitate Damen’s words. It was strange, hearing the man speak in his native tongue. Although Damen spoke Veretian fluently, his voice fit itself into the Akielon language more comfortably, the deep, open sounds of the vowels and the sharp lines of the consonants somehow more genuine. It was disorienting, as if Laurent was hearing him speak for the first time.</p><p>It was late when Laurent called a halt to the discussion, pushing a half-drunk goblet of water away from himself, and stretching.</p><p>“We’re done for the night. Come here and attend me.”</p><p>He said the words, stubbornly, in Akielon, determined to take every opportunity to perfect his speech. If his suspicions were right, a firm grasp on the language might soon prove immensely beneficial.</p><p>He turned, unthinkingly, presenting his back to Damen. He was used to being stripped of his armor, his outer clothes. It was a normal evening ritual between them. But tonight Damen stepped forward more slowly, and hesitated before putting his hands on the fabric above Laurent’s shoulder blades.</p><p>“Well? Begin,” said Laurent. He was confused as to the nature of the delay.</p><p>“I don’t think we need a private language for this,” Damen said.</p><p>"You don’t like it?” said Laurent</p><p>He could not entirely keep the curiosity from his voice. It had not occurred to him that the difference might prove disconcerting for Damen; that the commands which felt familiar in Veretian could take on new meaning in Akielon.</p><p>“Perhaps if I were more authentic,” said Laurent. “How does an owner command a bed slave in Akielos? Teach me.”</p><p>Damen’s fingers were already tangled in the laces; they went suddenly still. “Teach you how to command a bed slave?”</p><p>“You said in Nesson that you had used slaves,” said Laurent. “Don’t you think I should know the words?”</p><p>Damen’s hands began to move again, haltingly. “If you own a slave, you may command him however you like.”</p><p>Laurent’s lips twitched, unintentionally, with humor. “I haven’t found that necessarily to be the case.”</p><p>“I would prefer you to talk to me as a man,” Damen said. There was no humor in his tone to match Laurent’s; his voice was soft and deep in his chest. Laurent turned under his hands.</p><p>“Unlace the front,” he said.</p><p>Damen obeyed. His fingers were gentle, and now deft where they had once been clumsy. He pushed the jacket off Laurent’s shoulders, moving forward to do it. His hands slid into the garment, warm against Laurent’s chest. His voice changed, minutely, becoming gentle as a lover’s caress as he said, “But if you would rather—”</p><p>“Step back,” said Laurent. His heart was pounding; adrenaline coursed in his veins. He felt like a man on the edge of a precipice, unbalanced.</p><p>Damen stepped back. His eyes were dark in the warm light. His hands hovered at his sides.</p><p>They gazed at one another.</p><p>“Unless you need anything,” Damen said, carefully, “I’ll go and bring in some more coals for the brazier.”</p><p>“Go,” said Laurent.</p><p>***</p><p>Laurent carried himself to bed, lying silently as Damen tended to the brazier and performed all his duties. When he was done, he left the tent, and was gone for a long while. Laurent tried to sleep, but found that his body was tense and buzzing with adrenaline. When Damen returned, his hair was dripping with water, plastered against his skin in the warm light of the fire.</p><p>It was not entirely unfamiliar, the feelings that moved within him. Laurent remembered, as a young boy, watching the soldiers training on the field, the response of the body with the same fevered heartbeat and dizzy rush of blood. But like a bound sapling whose trunk grows twisted, those feelings had been tightly entwined in the spill of wine from a cup, in the speared boar at Chastillon, in the weight of the Regent’s hands, heavy with rings. The warm flood of heat was accompanied always by the sticky glut of shame, like a vulture circling a carcass long dead.</p><p>Laurent knew how he was seen: a frigid virgin, cold-blooded and severe. He felt very small, and very vulnerable, as he tried to fall asleep, wishing furiously that the icy shield he had cultivated might remain intact. It was only with this barrier that he was able to keep past and present distinctly separate, to suffocate the boy that lived, trapped, inside the man. He insisted to himself, firmly, that the body’s reaction might be easily discounted; Damen was well built and handsome, and any man might find his heart pounding under the gentle touch of those callused fingers. Yet always, the past was too near; it was impossible to experience the flood of heat without the heavy sickness of shame.</p><p>He lay awake for a long while. It was only after Damen's breathing had gone steady that Laurent fell, finally, into the waiting arms of sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter Ten</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Welcome to my ancestral home,” said Laurent, dryly.</p><p>Damen glanced sideways at him, before passing his gaze over the worn walls of Acquitart.</p><p><em>No troops and little strategic importance, </em>were the words Laurent had used to describe Acquitart to the court, on the day his uncle had stripped him of all holdings except this one.</p><p>Acquitart was small and old, and the village attached to it was a cluster of impoverished stone houses adhering to the base of the inner fort. There was no land available here for farming, and hunting might provide only a couple of chamois perched on rocks, that would disappear—leaping upward at the slightest approach of men—to a vantage where a horse could not follow.</p><p>And yet, when they approached, it was not poorly maintained. The barracks were in good repair, and so was the interior courtyard, and there were supplies of food and of weapons and materials to replace the damaged wagons. Everywhere he looked, Laurent was pleased to find that his planning had not gone to waste. Stores had been brought in, after a series of careful messages, in preparation for the arrival of Laurent’s men.</p><p>The caretaker was named Arnoul, an old man who took command of the servants and the wagons and started directing everybody. His wrinkled face unfolded in pleasure when he saw Laurent. Then folded back in on itself when he saw Damen.</p><p>“You once said that your uncle couldn’t take Acquitart away from you,” Damen said to Laurent. “Why is that?”</p><p>“It’s an independent governance. Which is absurd. On a map, it’s a speck. But I am Prince of Acquitart, as well as Prince of Vere, and the laws of Acquitart don’t require me to be twenty one to inherit. It’s mine. There’s nothing my uncle can do to take it,” said Laurent. And then, upon further reflection, “I suppose he could invade.” And then: “His men could wrestle Arnoul in the stairwell.”</p><p>“Arnoul seems to have mixed feelings about us staying here,” said Damen, diplomatically. Arnoul’s feelings were in no way mixed: he was pleased at the presence of his Prince, and displeased by the Akielon that tagged along. The old caretaker wore all his emotions plainly on his face.</p><p>“We’re not staying here. Not tonight. You are going to meet me at the stables after dark, when you have finished all of your usual duties. Discreetly,” said Laurent. He said it in Akielon.</p><p>They parted ways, and Laurent followed Arnoul into the keep. They had been exchanging letters for long months, from the time Laurent had begun to realize his uncle’s plan. He had known from the beginning that he would likely need to take a defensive position at Acquitart, and had communicated with Arnoul to ensure that the location remained well stocked. The old caretaker, despite his distaste for Akielons, was unswervingly loyal to the Prince; he had prepared well for Laurent’s arrival.</p><p>Laurent met after with Jord, and instructed him to give the men who usually looked after the supplies and the wagons and the horses the night off, and to give the soldiers also license to enjoy themselves. By the time night fell, barrels of wine had been cracked open and the barracks were lively with raucous laughter. No sentries were posted near the stables, or towards the east.</p><p>As Laurent slipped out, he saw Jord being led by the hand by an intent-looking Aimeric. Jord had the same slight awkwardness about billeting in an aristocrat’s chambers that Aimeric had when he attempted swearing.</p><p>Laurent allowed the small smile that crept onto his face—it was heartening to see the happy light in Aimeric’s eyes, after the blank numbness that had painted his face when last Laurent had seen him. And Jord, although low-born, was a better man than most of the noblemen that might court Aimeric; Laurent was glad to see that the young aristocrat cared more for a man's nature than his rank.</p><p>The vague smile remained as he made his way to the stables, where, amid muted whickers and shifting of straw, he saddled the horses. All that was left was to wait for Damen to arrive.</p><p>***</p><p>It was not a long wait. Their exit was more discreet and better planned than the last time they had left camp together, that lesson having been learned the hard way. Damen still shifted uncomfortably and frowned as they separated from the troop, but there were no belligerent protests this time. They rode east.</p><p>The sound of cicadas droned around them; it was a warm night. They left the sounds of Acquitart behind them, and the light, and rode under the night sky. As at Nesson, Laurent knew were he was going, even in the dark. Returning to Acquitart was like returning to greet an old friend; Laurent could close his eyes and picture every line and valley of the landscape. He knew the route they traveled as if it had been burned into the backs of his eyelids.</p><p>Now, he stopped. They were backed by mountains, surrounded by chasms of stone.</p><p>“You see? There’s actually a place in worse repair than Acquitart,” Laurent said.</p><p>It looked like a towering fortress, but moonlight shone clean through its arches, and its walls were of inconsistent heights, and trailed away in places, crumbling to nothing. It was a ruin, a once-great building that was now nothing but stones and the occasional arched wall. Everything that remained was vine- and moss-covered. It was older than Acquitart, so very old, built by some potentate long before Laurent’s dynasty. The ground was covered in a night-blooming flower, five-petalled and white, just opening to release its scent.</p><p>Laurent swung down from the saddle, then led his horse to one of the ancient protruding stone pieces, tethering it there. He breathed deeply, inhaling the familiar scent of damp stone and the vague floral sweetness of the unfurling buds. Damen followed, tethering his horse and allowing Laurent to guide them through one of the stone arches.</p><p>It was a place full of memories, warm and flickering as firelight. As a young boy, Auguste had snuck him out of the keep at night and ridden here with Laurent so that they could watch the flowers bloom under the moonlight. They would climb the crumbling stones and peer through the arches and make up stories about the kings and queens who had lived here. When they returned, late at night, breathless with laughter, Queen Hennike would scold them and tell them not to go running off, and would smooth Laurent’s hair back from his forehead with cool, gentle fingers. She was never really worried—Laurent was always safe, as long as he was with Auguste.</p><p>“What are we doing here?” Damen asked. The memories dissipated, ash in wind.</p><p>Laurent had walked a few steps from the archway, crushing flowers underfoot. Now he leaned his back against one of the broken-down stones.</p><p>“I used to come here when I was younger,” he said, “with my brother.” If he closed his eyes, he was sure he could hear the ghost of Auguste, laughing, climbing the ruined walls.</p><p>Damen went very still, and in the next moment the sound of hoofbeats caused him to turn, sharply, his sword singing from its sheath.</p><p>“No. I’m expecting them,” said Laurent.</p><p>***</p><p>It was women.</p><p>A few men, too. It was more difficult to keep up with the Vaskian dialect when it was more than one voice at a time, speaking quickly. But Laurent found that he was able, through strictly controlled concentration.</p><p>They allowed Laurent to keep his weapons, out of respect for his status as a prince. Damen’s sword, however, was promptly confiscated, and the knife at his belt was taken too. He appeared very displeased with this arrangement, frowning as he observed that only the women were left with arms.</p><p>The frown only deepened when Laurent said: “It is not permitted to see the approach to their camp. We will be taken there under blindfold.”</p><p>Having thusly explained their position, Laurent acquiesced to the nearest woman, who slipped a blindfold over his eyes and tied it behind his head. He had only time to observe the disbelieving expression on Damen’s face before his sight was obscured, but there were no sounds of flesh impacting flesh or swords being drawn, which Laurent took to mean that his companion had acquiesced, also, to the blindfolding.</p><p>They were taken on foot. It was not an elaborate, serpentine deception of a path. They simply traveled to their destination. They walked for about half an hour, before they heard the sound of drums, low and constant, growing louder. The blindfold was more a requirement of submission than a precaution, because it was very possible to trace their steps, both for Laurent’s mathematical mind and likely for Damen, who had a soldier’s training. Vannes had warned Laurent about this ritual, though, and he took it in stride.</p><p>The camp, when the blindfold lifted, comprised of long tents of cured leather, picketed horses and two lit campfires. There were figures moving around the campfires, and they saw the drummers, the drumming echoing out into the night. It looked animated, a little wild.</p><p>Damen turned to Laurent. “This is where we’re spending the night?”</p><p>“It’s a sign of trust,” said Laurent. “Do you know their culture? Of food and drink, accept anything that is offered to you. The woman beside you is Kashel, she has been appointed your attendant. The woman on the dais is named Halvik. When you are presented to her, go to your knees. Then you may sit on the ground. Do not accompany me onto the dais.”</p><p>Trust, Vannes had taught him, was an important aspect to negotiations with the Vaskian mountain tribes. Talks could not proceed unless the guest party had displayed their willingness to place confidence in the honor of the tribe. This was the reason behind the blindfolds, the weapons, and the etiquette that required acceptance of food and drink.</p><p>Damen was still frowning, but he was smart enough to bite back any protest he might have voiced. He followed Laurent towards the dais, which was a fur-draped wooden structure set up beside the fire. It was half throne, half bed. Halvik sat on it, watching their approach with black eyes, as flat and cold as obsidian.</p><p>Laurent calmly ascended the dais and arranged himself in a languid half-sprawl beside Halvik. It was important to show that he was relaxed, with no concerns about placing his trust in Halvik and her women.</p><p>Damen, on the other hand, was shoved to his knees, and a moment later was pulled back to the side of the dais, and made to sit. He looked quite disgruntled as he arranged himself on the furs, eying Kashel warily as she came to sit beside him. She offered him a cup.</p><p>On the dais, Laurent was also offered a cup. The liquid was milky white and had the stinging scent of alcohol: <em>hakesh. </em>It was fiery drink, Vannes had warned him, meant to rouse and imbue stamina in those who drank it. It was offered during negotiations such as these as a sign of goodwill and hospitality, to show that the Vaskian hosts cared for their guests’ pleasure. It could be refused, but only under certain pretexts.</p><p>Laurent waved the drink away, speaking the phrase Vannes had taught him: “My pleasure at our meeting fills me; it is joy enough to speak.” It was the polite way to indicate that he had no intention to partake in any physical pleasure, and found the tribe’s hospitality well enough without it. Halvik inclined her head respectfully, acknowledging his words.</p><p>They watched a display fight—a wrestling match. Laurent was not familiar with wrestling as a form of sport; it was more common in Akielos and Vask, and a rare entertainment in Vere. He studied with interest the practiced hold that the victorious woman used to subdue her opponent.</p><p>At the conclusion of the show, Halvik turned to Laurent, and the bargaining began. Laurent explained, in forthright terms, his situation and what he sought from the tribe. <em>Vask is unlike Vere, </em>Vannes had told him, <em>they have no patience for pretty wordplay. State your intentions clearly; anything less is a sign of disrespect, and will not be met kindly. </em></p><p>Halvik was impressed with his grasp of the Eastern dialect, and pleased with his direct summary of terms. She responded in kind, stating plainly that she was interested only if there could be some guarantee that her tribe would reap benefits far outweighing any damages they might sustain in the campaign that Laurent proposed. Laurent returned her flinty stare with an impassive gaze, holding his ground as they hammered out the bargain. This seemed to please Halvik, although she continued the quick back and forth without giving an inch of ground, pushing hard against Laurent as if to ensure he would not roll over. Vannes had warned him about this—<em>above all else, you must stand your ground. Do not give an inch until they do; Vaskians will only seriously negotiate if they feel you have proven your strength.</em></p><p>The discussion was interrupted after a series of exchanges when Kashel made her way to the dais, murmuring something into Halvik’s ear.</p><p>Halvik sat back, and her attention fixed on the spot where Damen sat. She said to Laurent, “My women request the services of your man. It is traditional for the dominant male to lie at the coupling fire, but of course, the decision is yours to make.”</p><p>This, too, Vannes had warned him about. Laurent turned to Damen, who was watching the exchange. He had relaxed onto the furs, and was gazing at Kashel with heavy-lidded eyes.</p><p>“Halvik inquires, respectfully, if you will perform a service for her girls,” Laurent said to him in Veretian.</p><p>“What service?”</p><p>“The traditional service,” said Laurent, “that Vaskian women claim from the dominant male.”</p><p>“I’m a slave. You outrank me.”</p><p>“It’s not a question of rank.”</p><p>Halvik cut in, in thickly accented Veretian, “He is smaller, and has the tongue of a cocotte. His seed will not breed strong women.”</p><p>Laurent could not entirely repress his amusement as he said, “In fact, my bloodline does not throw girls at all.”</p><p>Damen’s eyes were on Kashel as she made her way back to him from the dais. His face was flushed, his brow creased with uncertainty.</p><p>“Is this—are you ordering me to do this?”</p><p>“Do you need orders?” said Laurent. “I can direct you, if you lack proficiency.”</p><p>He watched as Kashel positioned herself on the furs beside Damen. She was gazing at him with open intensity, and her tunic had opened a little, slipping down over one shoulder. Her breath was shallow with anticipation.</p><p>“Kiss her,” said Laurent.</p><p>Damen’s eyes flashed, challenging, towards Laurent, before he leaned in, cupping the back of Kashel’s head and drawing her towards him for a long, deliberate kiss. Kashel made a breathy, yielding sound, running her fingers along Damen’s thighs. His hands slid up her tunic and fit almost all the way around her small waist.</p><p>“You can tell Halvik that it would be my honor to lie with one of her girls,” said Damen when he drew back, his voice low with pleasure. He brushed his thumb over Kashel’s mouth; her tongue flicked over the tip of his finger. They were both breathing expectantly.</p><p>“A buck is happiest when mounting a herd,” said Halvik, speaking to Laurent in Veretian. “Come, we will continue our negotiation away from the coupling fire. He will be brought to you when he is done.”</p><p>They departed, making their way towards another dais, another fire. Laurent remained cool and unruffled as they continued speaking, until Halvik finally gave some ground and the real negotiations began.</p><p>Her tribe could defeat any other, she told Laurent confidently after hearing his plan outlined. But she and her women would retain any spoils of the fight. Laurent pushed back, insisting that he would need prisoners to bear witness to the events. Halvik agreed, eyes flashing, and agreed also, eventually, that she would not use any weapons in raids along the border with Vere.</p><p>The negotiations lasted two hours, after which Halvik clapped him genially on the back and told him that his diminutive size was misleading, and he had the ironclad will of a giant. Laurent privately thought their preoccupation with size a bit misguided, but only thanked the woman politely. She offered him food and drink, and they ate together before she called a woman to show Laurent to his tent.</p><p>It was a simple affair of canvas and furs—two separate piles—and, seeing as Damen was still preoccupied, Laurent undressed himself and readied for bed. The furs were thick and soft, and when he lay down sleep came easily as he relaxed into the knowledge that another piece of his plan had been successfully set in motion.</p><p>***</p><p>Laurent stirred awake when the tent flap opened, pushing himself up onto one arm. He watched as Damen entered, bleary-eyed with exhaustion, swaying and unsteady on his feet. One hand was precariously clutching the fabric of his unlaced pants to preserve his modesty. His shirt was missing, lost at some point in the journey from fire to tent.</p><p>Laurent could not suppress the helpless laughter that bubbled up, shaking soundlessly as he pressed one hand to his mouth.</p><p>Damen said, “Stop. If I laugh, I’ll fall over.”</p><p>He squinted at the separate fur pile near Laurent’s as if trying to judge whether he could endure the few steps it would take to reach it, and then made a valiant effort, weaving precariously and collapsing onto the pile. He rolled over on his back. He was smiling.</p><p>“Halvik had a lot of girls,” he said.</p><p>The words came out sated and sex-drenched, exhausted and happy. His eyelids flickered drowsily; in seconds he would be asleep. Laurent’s sides were beginning to hurt.</p><p>Damen said, “Stop laughing.”</p><p>A moment later, he turned his head to look at Laurent, still lying on his side. He had his head propped on one hand, gazing down at Damen, unable to stop the helpless curl of his lips into a delighted grin.</p><p>“This is instructive. I’ve seen you put half a dozen men in the dirt without breaking a sweat.”</p><p>“Not right now, I couldn’t.”</p><p>“I can see that. You’re relieved of your regular duties in the morning.”</p><p>“That’s nice of you. I can’t get up. I’ll just lie here. Or did you need something?”</p><p>“Oh, how did you know?” Laurent could not resist saying, “Take me to bed.”</p><p>Damen groaned and laughed, breathlessly, before pulling the furs over his head. Laurent released a final sound of amusement, watching for a moment more as the pile of furs next to him grew still. In a few moments, he heard the steady breaths that meant Damen had fallen asleep.</p><p>***</p><p>The ride back through the dawn was easy and pleasant. The sky was clear of clouds, and the rising sun was bright; it was going to be a beautiful day. Laurent rose early to saddle the horses, pleased with the negotiations of the previous night and still smiling vaguely with lingering amusement. Damen, when he woke, was in good spirits, and seemed happy to ride in contented silence. They were abreast, part-way to Acquitart, when he suddenly asked:</p><p>“Your negotiations went well?”</p><p>“We certainly left in possession of a great deal of new goodwill.” Laurent said, carefully. It was not yet safe to share further details, but Damen seemed to bear this no mind.</p><p>“You should do business with the Vaskians more often.”</p><p>He was cheerfully oblivious, smiling out at the road ahead of them. Laurent paused before asking, hesitantly, “Is it different than with a man?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Damen. He did not elaborate further.</p><p><em>Do you prefer it, </em>Laurent did not ask. He thought of Auguste, all those years ago, in the library. It would be another thread, tying them together. He studied Damen, questions buzzing in his mind, but said nothing at all.</p><p>Damen said, “Are you curious about it? Isn’t it supposed to be taboo?”</p><p>“It is taboo,” said Laurent, automatically.</p><p>There was another pause.</p><p>“Bastards curse the line, and sour the milk, ruin the crops, and drag the sun out of the sky. But they don’t bother me. I pick all my fights with true-born men. You should probably bathe,” said Laurent, “when we return.”</p><p>Damen agreed heartily with this last statement, and left immediately to do so when they got back. They entered Laurent’s chambers by means of a part-hidden passage that was so narrow, Laurent thought for a moment that Damen would be unable to squeeze through. It took a great amount of force to push his body through the cramped space. When he opened the door to Laurent’s room, however, he froze, abruptly.</p><p>Laurent, who had moved towards his desk, looked back at Damen with a frown, unsure what had caused this delay until he heard Aimeric’s stunned voice from the hallway outside.</p><p>“We knocked and there was no answer,” said Aimeric. “Jord sent men to find you.”</p><p>Laurent realized, immediately, how this would appear. Damen was still radiating his good mood, and looked unmistakably as if he had fucked all night and then crawled through a passage. Well—the men already thought it was happening. Laurent supposed it could not be helped.</p><p>“Is there some delay?” He asked blithely, moving to stand next to Damen in the doorway. Aimeric stared, eyes darting between the two of them.</p><p>Then, gathering his attention back together, Aimeric said, “The news came an hour ago. There’s been an attack on the border.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>reference to Auguste in the library is from the memory I wrote for the first book, when Auguste first told Laurent he preferred women</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter Eleven</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was not an entry into town such as a prince would usually make, with a parade, and entertainments and days of feasts hosted by the lord. Laurent rode in at the head of his troop without any other spectacle, though people came into the streets nonetheless, craning for a glimpse of him. Any antipathy the commons might have felt towards Laurent disappeared the moment they saw him. Ecstatic adoration. It made his heart clench, like a fist. People just like these had been cut down in the border attack.</p><p>Ravenel was not built to be welcoming to strangers. Anyone riding through the gates was confronted, immediately, with the overwhelming impression of might and power. If the stranger was a shirker-prince who was gracing the border only because he’d been prodded and poked there by his uncle, it was less welcoming still. The courtiers who had gathered on the dais in Ravenel’s great courtyard had the same stony outward appearance as Ravenel’s repelling crenellations. If the shirker-prince brough an Akielon, the reception was hostile: when Damen followed Laurent up the dais steps, the wave of anger and resentment at his presence was almost palpable.</p><p>The last time Laurent had been inside a fort like this one, he was thirteen years old. Marlas, Fortaine, and Ravenel—all were the jewels of the border, though they were less glittering gems than heavy, immovable boulders. Massive wooden doors and thick stone walls created layers of protection that were as close to impenetrable as one could get; even after Marlas fell six years ago, King Theomedes had not been fool enough to take on an extended siege of the other forts. Fortaine and Ravenel had remained untouched: the dominant military powers of the region.</p><p>Conspicuous and powerful, they required that their Akielon counterparts be equally armed and constantly buffered in numbers. The result on the border was a tense bristle of garrisons, and an abundance of fighters who were not technically at war, but who had never been truly at peace. Too many soldiers and not enough fights: the gathering violence was not diffused by the minor raids and skirmishes that each side disavowed. It was not diffused by the formal challenges and fights, organized and official, with rules and refreshments and spectators that allowed both sides, smilingly, to kill each other.</p><p>Typically, a ruler would send a seasoned diplomat to oversee this fraught standoff, not a green prince serving his first term at the border. But of course, this was not politics as usual: this was a trap, Ravenel’s doors a wide, toothed jaw, waiting to devour Laurent and his men.</p><p>“Your Highness. We were expecting you two weeks ago. But we were glad to hear that you enjoyed the inns of Nesson,” said Lord Touars. “Perhaps we can find you something equally entertaining to do here.”</p><p>Lord Touars of Ravenel had the shoulders of a soldier and a scar that ran from the corner of one eyelid all the way down to his mouth. He stared at Laurent flatly as he spoke. Beside him, his eldest son Thevenin, a pale, pudgy boy of perhaps nine years, was staring at Laurent with the same expression.</p><p>Behind that, the rest of the courtly greeting party stood unmoving. Many eyes rested on Damen, heavy and unpleasant, as if he had somehow perpetrated the attack that called them here. These were border men and women, who had been fighting Akielos their whole lives. And each of them was charged with the news that they had heard this morning: an Akielon attack had destroyed the village of Breteau. There was war in the air.</p><p>“I am not here to be entertained, but to hear the reports of the attack that crossed my borders this morning,” said Laurent. “Assemble your captains and advisors in the great hall.”</p><p>It was usual for arriving guests to first rest and change out of their riding clothes, but Laurent knew what this retinue saw when they looked at him: a spoiled boy-prince, lazy and unfit to rule. His uncle had been whispering in the ear of Lord Touars and men like him since Laurent was a child; the only way he might hope to clean away some of the muck smeared across his name was with decisive action. And even aside from that, Laurent was in no mood to relax. People had died. <em>His </em>people had died.</p><p>Lord Touars made an acceding gesture, and the gathered courtiers began to progress inwards. Damen made to leave with the soldiers, but Laurent stopped him with a curt order: “No. Follow me inside.”</p><p>Damen glanced apprehensively at the armored walls, but obeyed. At the entrance to the great hall a liveried servant stepped into their path, and with a shallow bow said, “Your Highness, Lord Touars prefers that the Akielon slave does not come into the hall.”</p><p>“I prefer that he does,” was all Laurent said, pacing forward, and leaving no choice but to follow. It was a risk—Touars and his men would view it as obstinate and disrespectful. But these men needed to understand their position in relation to Laurent: it did not matter if they thought him childish. He was their Prince, and it was to his authority that they must answer.</p><p>He held his head high as they strode into the great hall. It was massive, and built for defense, its doors two story high, a place in which the whole of the garrison could be called together to receive orders and from which they could rapidly be directed simultaneously upon every point of the enceinte. It could also function as a point of retreat, if the walls were forced. Of troops stationed in this fort, Laurent supposed there might be two thousand in total. Certainly, there were more than enough to crush his own contingent of one hundred and seventy-five horse. They were riding into a trap, and Laurent knew it—but the jaws would not close just yet. There would still be time to ride out, and escape the maw of his uncle's beast.</p><p>Enguerran, Lord Touar’s troop commander, was the next to halt their approach. He interposed his shoulder in Damen’s path, armored and with a cape attached to it. When he spoke, his voice was heavy as the stone walls surrounding them.</p><p>“An Akielon has no place in the company of men. Your Highness will understand.”</p><p>“Is my slave making you nervous?” said Laurent. “I can understand that. It takes a man to handle him.”</p><p>“I know how to handle Akielons. I don’t invite them indoors.”</p><p>“This Akielon is a member of my household,” said Laurent. “Step back, Captain.”</p><p>Enguerran stepped back. Laurent took his seat at the head of the long wooden table. Lord Touars sat in the lesser position to his right. Enguerran followed him to the table, features stormy as he took his seat. Further down the table was the advisor Hestal. The nine-year-old son Thevenin was joining them also.</p><p>Damen was not given a seat. He stood behind Laurent and to the left, turning to watch as another man entered. It was the Ambassador to Akielos, who was also Councillor to the Regent, Lord of Fortaine, and Aimeric’s father.</p><p>“Councillor Guion,” said Laurent.</p><p>His mind whirled, quickly fitting together this new piece of the puzzle. Guion was one of the Regent’s most loyal supporters—they had been in league since the coup in Akielos, at least. A series of facts unfolded seamlessly as Laurent watched the man approach. First, that Guion had left Fortaine on the order of Laurent’s uncle, which meant he would be acting as the primary agent of the Regent’s will in this border endeavor. Second, following this, Touars was likely unaware of the plot currently underway. Though it would be easy to goad him into a fight, Guion would not be here if, from the start, Touars had already been aware of the Regent’s private intentions. Third, due to the covert nature of his uncle’s plot, both Guion and Touars would be hesitant to act until they received direct word from the Regent sanctioning their actions. This meant a handful of days, at least, would be available, during which time Laurent might be able to untangle the snares his uncle had set for him.</p><p>“You have brought a beast to the table. Where is the Captain your uncle appointed you?” Guion was speaking.</p><p>“I stuck my sword through his shoulder, then had him stripped and run out of the company,” said Laurent.</p><p>A pause. Councillor Guion regrouped. “Your uncle knows of this?”</p><p>“That I spayed his dog? Yes. I think we have more important things to speak of?”</p><p>As the silence stretched out, it was Captain Enguerran who simply said, “You are correct.”</p><p>They began to discuss the attack.</p><p>Laurent had heard the first reports in Acquitart that morning, with Damen at his side. Akielons had destroyed a Veretian village. The Akielon attack was retaliation. The day before, a border raid had swept through an Akielon village. Laurent had seen the anger that transmitted itself through Damen’s body as they listened to the news: the tensing of the shoulder, the shifting of the jaw. There had been a series of clipped exchanges. “Your uncle paid raiders to cut down an Akielon village.” Yes. “People are dead.” Yes. “Did you know this would happen?” Yes.</p><p>Laurent had said to him calmly, “You knew my uncle wanted to provoke conflict at the border. How else did you think he was going to do it?” He understood the anger the simmered in Damen; he, too, felt the cold rage as he thought of the innocents cut down at the behest of his uncle’s gold. But Laurent had steeled himself for this, expected it. He maintained his composure, forcing his anger to cool to indifference so icy it stung. There was no room for emotion in his uncle’s cold-blooded games.</p><p>In those initial reports at Acquitart, they had not been told the size and extent of the Akielon retaliation. It had begun before dawn. It was no small band of attackers, nor was it a strike that tried to disguise itself. It was an Akielon troop, full sized, armed and armored, claiming retribution for a raid on one of their own villages. By the time the sun rose, they had slaughtered several hundred in the village of Breteau, among them Adric and Charron, two members of minor nobility who had detoured their small retinue from a camp a mile or so off to fight to protect the villagers. The Akielon raiders lit fires, they killed livestock. They killed men and women. They killed children.</p><p>At the end of the first round of discussion, Laurent said, steadily, “An Akielon village was also attacked?” The men staring back at him frowned.</p><p>“There was an attack. It was not of this scale. It was not done by us.”</p><p>“Who was it done by?”</p><p>“Raiders, mountain clans, it hardly matters. Akielons will take any excuse to spill blood.”</p><p>It was what they had been taught. It was what they had all been taught. It was what everyone had said, six years ago at Marlas, when King Theomedes had marched onto Veretian land and demanded they fight. It was what Laurent had learned to think. He felt the presence of Damen behind him like a thorn in his side.</p><p>“So you have not tried to find out the perpetrator of the original attack?” said Laurent.</p><p>Lord Touars said, “If I did find him, I would shake his hand, and send him on his way with my thanks for his killings.”</p><p>A month ago, Laurent might have felt the same way. Now, frustration welled up—could these men not <em>see </em>the incongruity of the words? Violence was not altered in crossing a border; death remained death in both Akielos and Vere.</p><p>He bit back the emotion, tipping his head back on the chair and looking at Touars’ son Thevenin.</p><p>“Is he that lenient with you?” Laurent said, mildly.</p><p>“No,” said Thevenin, incautiously. And then he flushed, finding his father’s black eyes on him.</p><p>“The Prince is light in his manner,” said Councillor Guion, staring past Laurent’s shoulder at Damen, “and does not seem to like to blame Akielos for any wrongdoing.”</p><p>“I don’t blame insects for buzzing when someone kicks their hive over,” said Laurent. “I find myself curious about who it is that wants to see me stung.”</p><p>Another pause. Lord Touars’ gaze flickered coldly to Damen, then back again. “We will not discuss this further in the presence of an Akielon. Send him out.”</p><p>“Out of respect to Lord Touars, leave us,” said Laurent, without turning around.</p><p>He had made his point earlier. Now he had more to gain by asserting his authority in Damen’s direction. This was a meeting that might spark a war—or stop one, if Laurent did everything right. Damen bowed, and left without protest. Laurent faced the remaining hostile faces alone.</p><p>           ***</p><p>At the end of the first hour, Laurent had managed to ensure that the garrison of Ravenel would not immediately take up arms to march on Akielos. Lord Touars wanted a fight, but he was not prepared to immediately wage war. The attack, as far as Laurent could tell, had come as a surprise; he would not rush to action without further information. Or further orders.</p><p>Councillor Guion presented a problem, as Laurent had expected him to. His needling remarks at Laurent’s hesitance to march into battle suggested that the Prince was, at best, a coward and, at worst, bordered on accusations of treason. He demanded to know why Laurent had ridden south to the border, if not to defend his country from barbarian violence such as that at Breteau.</p><p>“For all your careful hours spent negotiating the treaty with Akielos, you appear eager to throw our peace away,” Laurent said, mildly, at the end of a particular stinging remark from Guion. The older man flushed.</p><p>“Akielos has already thrown the peace away. It is our job to defend our people.”</p><p>“Then you have already failed. Breteau was undefended.”</p><p>The air in the room grew heavy. Laurent pressed forward.</p><p>“To ride to battle now would only bring more violence. I value my uncle’s treaty with Akielos, and would not see it cast so easily aside.”</p><p>“You sang a different tune in Arles,” Guion said.</p><p>“Yes. The Council urged me to reconsider my position. I believe you were present.”</p><p>It went on like this, over the course of the next two hours. These border lords represented the heart of the Regent’s faction. They were of his generation. They had spent the last six years receiving his favors. With land on the border, they felt they had the most to lose from the uncertain leadership of a young, untried prince. That the prince was now telling them to hold their forces, rather than defend their lands, did not sit well with any of the men present.</p><p>Yet Laurent was able to use his uncle’s shifting position against him. In Arles, the Regent had emphasized the importance of his treaty with Kastor in order to punish Laurent. In doing so, he had ensured that none of the nobility would raise a hand against Akielos without approval from the Regent and the Council. In lieu of that, the Prince’s orders must be followed. And if the Prince agreed with the Regent's previously stated position that the treaty must be upheld, then there could be no action taken until they heard from the capital.  </p><p>Guion did his best to prod Touars into action—no doubt working under his own, private orders from the Regent. But Touars had received no direct orders of his own, and so was caught in the deadlock between nephew and uncle, unsure how to proceed. Laurent insisted that his company first ride to Breteau, to oversee the cleanup and assess the situation further, before determining a set course of action. It took four hours, but Laurent held his ground. Eventually, Touars and Guion had no choice but to accede.</p><p>There was no good will as the meeting broke. Laurent could see that both Guion and Touars, as well as most of the courtiers who had joined them, were a lost cause. They were his uncle’s men through and through; Laurent’s attempts to circumvent a war on the border now meant he would never gain their favor. It was a sacrifice he would have to make—to march on Akielos would mean death for himself and his men, in one way or another.</p><p>As a servant led him to his rooms, he reflected on the situation. He could not win their favor, but it might still be possible to stop this brewing war. Laurent had already arranged with Halvik to neuter the force his uncle had paid to attack Tarasis. If Laurent could find those men and deliver them back to Ravenel, it might be possible to reveal his uncle’s hand in the plot. He would have to tread very carefully, making no direct accusations; Guion would fight him, but Touars was a reasonable man. If presented with concrete evidence of treason, the scales might fall from his eyes.</p><p>It was another campaign that his men could not assist with. Laurent would have to ride alone to capture his uncle’s raider force; he had already decided that they must be baited out, as a full company of men would only drive the mercenaries away. They had been paid to attack a defenseless village, not fight a true battle.</p><p>Laurent would be the bait, then. It was already set with Halvik. He would leave his men at Breteau, and go to seek the raiders that had destroyed Tarasis. This would all need to be accomplished before his uncle could send further orders to Ravenel—he would have three days, at most. Reaching his room, he dismissed the servant, and sat himself down with a map. He had three days to stop a war—he could only hope it would be enough.</p><p>***</p><p>Damen’s eyes were closed off, distant and troubled. There was blood flecked on his clothing, and a red welt on his cheek. Someone had scratched him. He had been assisting Paschal, shortly before Laurent called for him. His mouth was set in a hard, grim line.</p><p>“Report.”</p><p>“I didn’t manage to make a full circuit of the walls, I was stopped on the west side. But I’d say there are between fifteen and seventeen hundred men stationed here. It looks like Ravenel’s usual defensive contingent. The storehouses are full enough, but not at capacity. I didn’t see any signs of war preparations, aside from the outriders and doubled guard since this morning. I think this attack took them by surprise.”</p><p>“It was the same in the great hall. Lord Touars did not have the manner of a man who was expecting a fight, for all he wants one.”</p><p>Damen said, “So the border lords are not working with your uncle to incite this war.”</p><p>“I don’t think Lord Touars is,” Laurent said. “We ride to Breteau. I have won us two or three days. It was grudging. But it will take that long for any communication from my uncle to arrive, and Lord Touars is not going to wage a breakaway war on Akielos all by himself.”</p><p>Damen nodded at this, brow furrowing as he turned the information over in his mind. Laurent watched him draw in a slow breath.</p><p>He could guess what the man was thinking. They were now at the border; Damen would likely take the first chance he had to escape. It would be a simple matter, to slip away and flee across the border, have a blacksmith remove the gold collar and cuffs, and travel south. The northern kyroi were suspicious of Kastor; the return of Damianos would mean civil war. This meant that it was in Damen's best interest to first prevent war with Vere; if Laurent's country armed itself also to fight, then Damianos would be facing two simultaneous battles. Laurent held on to this fact--Damen would want to see this border conflict through before he left. </p><p>Still, the time was approaching that he would make his escape. And if they were unable to prevent the war, then Laurent would face Damen over the lines of battle. As it was always meant to be.</p><p>The thought made his stomach twist. Laurent had been caught up, he supposed, in all the warm firelight, the exhilarating chase over rooftops, the nights spent talking, bent over maps. The last time Laurent had spoken like that with anyone—late into the night, smiling quietly—was when Auguste was alive.</p><p>There was a sudden pulse of anger, hot against his brow. Of hatred, sweltering and familiar, tangled up in thoughts of Damen escaping, leaving him to face the Regent alone, and returning as that man under the helm with flashing eyes that Laurent had first seen when he was thirteen, on the field at Marlas. Damen would transform to another enemy, another fight.</p><p>Laurent repressed the emotion. He had always known how things would end between them—with one at the end of the other’s sword. He had realized, when he brought Damen on this journey, that they would part ways at the border. Just because they had been swept up in the camaraderie of the southwards campaign did not mean anything had changed, between them.</p><p>“Then we ride to Breteau,” said Damen.</p><p>And he stood, without looking again at Laurent, and began the last preparations for bed.</p><p>***</p><p>They were not the first to arrive at Breteau.</p><p>Lord Touars had sent out a contingent of men to protect what remained, and to bury or burn the bodies, so that they would not attract disease or scavengers looking for carrion.</p><p>They were a small group of men. They had worked hard. Each of the barns, huts and outbuildings had been checked for survivors, and those few there were had been taken into one of the physician’s tents. The quality of the air was thick with the smell of burnt wood and straw, but there were no smoldering patches of ground. The first had been put out. The pits were already half dug.</p><p>Laurent’s eyes passed over a deserted hut, a broken spear-shaft protruding from a lifeless form, the remains of an outdoor gathering with knocked-over cups of wine. The villagers had fought. Here and there, one of the fallen people was still clutching a hoe or a rock, or a pair of shears, or any of the crude weapons that a villager could muster at short notice.</p><p>Laurent’s men gave the respect of quiet hard work, clearing methodically, a little gentler when the body was that of a child. They accepted Damen as he worked alongside them, as if oblivious to the fact of who and what he was. Laurent oversaw the men, assigning duties with Jord. He saw Aimeric, white-faced, helping carry the body of one of the minor nobles, a young man of the same age. Laurent thought of the high stone walls of Ravenel, the opulence of the palace at Arles, and felt all the way down to his bones how unprotected this place had been.</p><p>It was difficult, to control the fury he felt. It spun away from him, south, towards Akielos. They claimed this attack retribution for a raid whose origins they had no way of determining. Laurent saw, for a moment, what the border lords saw: bloodthirst and barbarians, who killed children out of some misguided sense of honor that demanded if hit, they must hit back harder. He thought back in time to Marlas, to the way the Akielon troops had cheered when his brother fell, to the way they had danced on bloodied ground. There was no honor in the scene spread across Breteau, and no retribution. Laurent stared down at the body of a young girl, hands still wrapped around the spear-shaft puncturing her chest, blood dried and flaking around her lips.</p><p>He forced himself to remember that this entire series of events had been his uncle’s doing. That the Regent had paid raiders to commit violence just like this on other bodies across the border. That the Regent had understood Akielos would attack in retaliation. That the Regent was willing to sacrifice the lives of his own men, women, and children to grasp, hungrily, at the throne.</p><p><em>If I had let him kill me in Arles, these people would still be alive, </em>Laurent thought, numbly. He wondered how many other lives his own was worth, but could find no clear answer. <em>Not this many. </em>He wondered if there would be less bloodshed, if he had allowed the assassins his uncle sent to gut him with their knives.</p><p>Jord was speaking to him. There was a survivor. An Akielon. The anger was a coiled viper in the pit of Laurent’s stomach.</p><p>He followed Jord to the dark hut. There was a pallet. On the pallet was a dying man. He was half-corpse already, breath rattling out of his lungs like dice onto a table. Laurent saw that the wound on his stomach had been tended. It made no difference. He would die anyway.</p><p>His eyes were open, lashes flickering, face contorted in pain. He had thick curling dark hair and dark eyes; the hair was sweat-tangled, and sweat filmed his brow. Laurent stood in the doorway for a moment. The anger bled out of him like acid, stinging. He turned to find Damen.</p><p>“There are survivors,” he said, “I want you to question them.”</p><p>Damen frowned in confusion, apprehension. “I shouldn’t be the one who—”</p><p>“Akielon survivors,” said Laurent, shortly.</p><p>Damen drew in a breath. The confusion was gone, but the apprehension remained. He said, carefully, “If Veretians had been captured after this kind of attack on an Akielon village, they would have been executed.”</p><p>“They will be,” said Laurent. “Find out what they know about the raid on Akielos that provoked this attack.”</p><p>Laurent watched Damen disappear into the hut, which now contained the only two Akielons left in Breteau. Then he turned back to his men, and returned to the business of burying their dead.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter Twelve</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warning: again, some very vague references to past abuse near the end of the chapter (during the conversation about trusting family).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Damen relayed the information gathered from the Akielon survivor in a stark, unadorned retelling. It was exactly as Laurent had suspected: clan raiders, paid to ride through the mountains. When it was finished, Laurent said in an inflectionless voice, “The word of a dead Akielon, unfortunately, is worth nothing.”</p><p>“You knew before you sent me in to question him that his answer would lead to the foothills. These attacks were timed to coincide with your arrival. You are being drawn away from Ravenel.”</p><p>Laurent gave Damen a long, pensive look. The man was a quick learner—more and more, he seemed able to grasp the outline of the Regent’s plans with no need for explanation. It was almost disconcerting, to speak so plainly about the machinations of his uncle when for years Laurent had been forced to bite his tongue. Eventually, he said, “Yes, the trap is closing and there is nothing else to be done.”</p><p>He sent Damen to saddle the horses, with instructions to be discreet. The two of them would ride out, alone, leaving the rest of the men behind at Breteau. Outside the tent, the grim cleanup continued.</p><p>Laurent found Jord. Dust had settled in his hair and clothes; his fingers were caked with grime. He was helping to dig a pit, into which they would pile the bodies of the villagers. There were too many for individual graves—the people of Breteau would be buried as they had died: together.</p><p>He gave brief, vague orders. Ensure the cleanup ran smoothly. Oversee the men. Remain at Breteau until they returned. Jord asked no questions, only nodded and agreed, once, at the end. Then, hesitatingly: “Be careful.” He swept his gaze across the bodies, piled next to the pit.</p><p>“Of course,” said Laurent.</p><p>***</p><p>It was a case where numbers were not helpful, only speed, stealth and knowledge of the territory. If you were going to spy for evidence of a strike force in the hills, you did not want the sound of pounding hooves and the flash of burnished helmets announcing your intentions. If, once found, you had need to bait that force out of its tucked-away position, it would be even less prudent to bring troops along. Or at least, to bring troops along obviously—Laurent’s reinforcements were stationed also among these hills. He only had to ensure that they were positioned correctly for their rendezvous.</p><p>The last time that Laurent had chosen to separate himself from the troop, Damen had argued against it. <em>The easiest way for your uncle to get rid of you is to separate you from your men, and you know it, </em>he’d said at Nesson. This time Damen said nothing, only rode silently beside Laurent, although they were traveling through one of the most heavily garrisoned regions on the border. He understood, having seen Breteau: Laurent’s life was not the only thing at stake.</p><p>The route they would travel would take them a day’s ride south, then into the hills. They would seek out any obvious evidence of an encampment. Failing that, they would attempt to rendezvous with the local clans. At least—that was the information Laurent gave to Damen. He conveniently failed to mention the specific sort of rendezvous he had already planned with Halvik. Only a fool revealed every card in his hand to those around him. And besides, they had only two days; there was no telling if it would be sufficient time to carry out the entire plan.</p><p>As they rode, Laurent felt the fragility of the bond between them like a blade at his neck. He was all too aware of their position at the border; the Akielon troop that had ridden on Breteau could be only a few miles away. If Damen chose now to make his escape, riding hard cross country, there would be little Laurent could do to stop him. If Damen chose not just to escape, but to take this moment to attack—well.</p><p>An hour put several miles between them and the rest of Laurent’s men, and that was when Laurent pulled on a rein and circled his horse around Damen’s briefly, studying him for any signs of apprehension, for the furrow between brows that appeared when he was planning maneuvers over maps. Best to determine now what course of action the man planned to take.</p><p>“Think I’m going to sell you to the nearest Akielon troop?” said Damen.</p><p>Laurent said, “I’m quite a good rider.”</p><p>Damen looked, pointedly, at the distance that separated their horses—about three lengths. It was not much of a head start. They were now circling each other.</p><p>Anyone could see that good riding would only make so much difference, especially with Akielon troops crawling through the hills. Damen was gazing at Laurent, but as much as Laurent studied him, he could find nothing sinister behind the flashing eyes.</p><p>Damen was ready for the moment when Laurent put his heels into his horse. The ground flashed by and an interval passed breathlessly. Laurent’s lungs filled with wind; the horse beneath him was a coursing river of muscle and sinew. Damen did not move to close the gap between them, only followed him.</p><p>They couldn’t maintain the pace: they only had one set of horses, and the first declivity was lightly forested, so that weaving was essential and a gallop or fast canter impossible. They slowed, found leaf-strewn paths. It was mid-afternoon, the sun high-flung in the sky, and the light streamed down through the tall trees, dappling the ground and turning the leaves bright. Laurent had only made a few long, cross-country rides like these before—with Auguste. A few times, just the two of them, but more often with a retinue, and the last was the long trek to Marlas.</p><p>It was exhilarating. The sun was warm on his face; his breath came hard, a deep, cleansing rush of air from the lungs. Damen left the distance that Laurent had created, and, seeing it, some of the tension unwound. It felt good to ride out knowing that he was following his own plan, and not his uncle’s; the outcome of this border plot felt, at the moment, as if it fell within his own hands. He understood that the border lords, determined on a course of action, would likely find a way to dismiss or ignore any evidence that did not fit into their plans—especially when they received word from the Regent in the capital. But he would seek justice for Breteau, regardless. He would find tactile proof of what he knew to be true. That idea was satisfying.</p><p>After a few hours, Laurent broke through an opening in trees to find a small clearing on the edge of a stream. He allowed his horse to slow, moving towards the water. He did not need to guide it as it lowered its head to drink; he had only to loosen his grip on the reins, allowing soft leather to slip through his fingers.</p><p>A few moments passed, and he saw Damen emerge from the trees. The sunlight broke over him, so that for a moment he looked more gold than man. The corners of his mouth were turned up slightly, unconsciously. His face was flushed with the exertion of the ride, but his limbs relaxed, and when he saw Laurent he gazed at him like a man studying a painting. His horse grasped its bit and drew him forward, and Damen smiled.</p><p>Cleaving the silence came the sound of an Akielon horn.</p><p>It was loud and sudden. The birds in the nearby trees made disrupted notes of their own and flew upwards out of the branches. Laurent whirled his horse in the direction of the sound, heart beating painfully. The horn came from over the rise, which could be seen from the disturbance of the birds. With a single look at Damen, Laurent pressed his mount over the stream, towards the crest of the hill.</p><p>As they rode up the slope, a sound began to intrude over the noise of the fast-running stream water, as if many feet were in half-regular march. It was a familiar sound. It did not come only from the tramp of leather boots on the earth but from hooves, the clinks of armor and the turning of wheels, all of which gave it its irregular pattern.</p><p>Laurent reined in his horse as they crested the hill together, barely hidden from sight behind outcrops of granite.</p><p>He looked out.</p><p>The men spanned the length of the adjoining valley, a line of red cloaks in perfect formation. At this distance, Laurent could see the man blowing the horn, the ivory curve at the tip. The standards that were flying were the standards of the commander Makedon.</p><p>For a moment, he was dizzy with the weight of the past. He was not able to control, entirely, the panic that broke open in his chest, only to stifle it. The armor of the men, the formation in which they rode, the sound of the horn—all echoed another army, another march, another field. Laurent was acutely aware of Damen, next to him, only a few feet away.</p><p>He turned. Damen was watching the troop with something like pain in the twist of his features. His entire body was inclined, slightly, towards the men, as if unconsciously pulled to join them. As if it would be the most natural thing in the world for him to ride down the hill, and return home.</p><p>And then Damen shifted. His gaze moved from the troop of Akielons to Laurent, who stiffened. There was something flickering in Damen’s eyes, and Laurent could see that he was a man balanced on a knife-edge, knowing that any movement would draw blood.</p><p>Laurent said, “The nearest Akielon troop is nearer than I expected.” It took all his effort to keep his voice steady.</p><p>“I could throw you over the back of my horse,” Damen said.</p><p>They both knew he wouldn’t even need to do that. He would just need to wait. Outriders would be galloping through these hills.</p><p>The horn split the air again; Damen’s head swung a little, as if the call were meant for him. Laurent could see the desire in every line of his body, could see him imagining it: struggling, subduing, delivering the Veretian Prince into Akielon captivity. Damen pressed his eyes closed briefly.</p><p>“You need to take cover,” Damen said. “We’re inside their scouting lines. I can ride as lookout until they’ve moved on.”</p><p>It would be stupid, to trust him. The moment he sent Laurent off, he might go to join the Akielon troop. There would be no Veretian guards to stop him, as there were in Arles, no Govart. All Damen had to do was ride a few paces down a hill. More than that—he could bring the outriders back, send them searching for Laurent. A smart man would abandon his position, and ride back to his own troop.</p><p>“Very well,” said Laurent, after a heartbeat passed with his eyes watching Damen steadily.</p><p>***</p><p>They agreed on a rendezvous, and Laurent took off with the restrained urgency of a man who has to find some way to hid sixteen hands of bay gelding behind a shrub. He rode back to the rocky stream, following its path until he found a shallow cave. A cursory examination revealed that the entrance was hidden from most angles, and the danger of discovery once tucked inside would be low. An outrider’s job was simply to ensure the terrain was clear of any obstacles that might impede an army. It was not to check every crack and crevasse on the unlikely chance a prince might be squeezed in there.</p><p>It was a tight fit with the horse, but Laurent managed it. Pressed against the sweat-dampened flank, listening only to the soft breath of the animal, he could do nothing but wait.</p><p>He thought of Damen, dressed in Veretian clothing. Under normal circumstances, an encounter with an Akielon would not be a threat to a Veretian. At worst, there would be some unpleasant posturing. But the troop they had just seen was likely the same troop that had destroyed Breteau. Laurent was not as well-versed in Akielon politics as he might like, but he knew enough to realize that what they had just seen were war preparations.</p><p>Makedon, whose attack on Breteau had thrown down the gauntlet for this conflict, was likely presenting these troops to his Kyros, Nikandros of Delpha, who must be in residence in the west, maybe even at Marlas. Other northern men would follow suit.</p><p>Laurent thought of the messenger at the inn at Nesson. He thought of the letter, written in cipher. <em>Tell him I will wait for him at Ravenel. </em>He counted days in his head, carefully. It was getting complicated, keeping track of all his scheduled rendezvouses.</p><p>He did not think of Damen, who was gone for the better part of an hour. He did not imagine him riding to join the Akielon army, pointing back the way he came, guiding men back to the stream. He did not think of Damen leaving, only to return with a red cloak and Akielon armor and eyes hard as stone under a helm.</p><p>His heart pounded when he heard, finally, the approach of hooves across the rocky streambed. He listened carefully—it was only one rider. He drew level with the cave where Laurent was hidden, and stopped.</p><p>There was the dull rattle of hooves moving on stone; Laurent emerged from the shadows of the cave on horseback, fighting the cornered animal that was his heart. He kept himself carefully casual.</p><p>“I thought you’d be halfway back to Breteau by now,” said Damen. He was seated on his horse, shoulders a severe line, regarding Laurent. He did not move closer.</p><p>Laurent stared back, wary. Every muscle in his body was tensed for flight. “I think the chances that those men would kill me are fairly low. I’d be too valuable as a political game-piece. Even after my uncle disavowed me, which he would, though I’d quite like to see his reaction when he heard the news. It would not present an ideal situation for him at all. Do you think I’d get on well with Nikandros of Delpha?”</p><p>He kept his eyes on Damen as he spoke, searching for any misgiving. In the periphery of his vision, he waited for signs of movement. Damen frowned.</p><p>“I wouldn’t have to tell them you were a prince to sell you to that troop.”</p><p>Laurent held his ground, though the thought had occurred to him, too. “Not really? I would have thought twenty was a little grown up for that. Is it the blond hair?”</p><p>“It’s the charming temperament,” said Damen.</p><p>Laurent released a breath.</p><p>“Before you carry me off,” he said, “tell me about Makedon. Those were his standards. Is he riding with the sanction of Nikandros? Or did he break orders when he attacked my country?”</p><p>“I think he broke orders,” After a moment of consideration, Damen answered. “I think he was angry and struck out at Breteau in independent action. Nikandros would not retaliate like that, he would wait for an order from his King. That is his way as Kyros. But now that it’s done, you can expect Nikandros to support Makedon. Nikandros is like Touars. He would be well pleased by a war.”</p><p>“Until he lost one. The northern provinces are destabilizing to Kastor. It would be in Kastor’s best interests to sacrifice Delpha.”</p><p>“Kastor wouldn’t—” Damen started to speak, then stopped. His brow furrowed as he gave the full weight of consideration to Laurent’s words. It was not a tactic that would have occurred to him—it was likely not a tactic that would occur to Kastor, either. But Kastor was not beyond the influence of outside forces.</p><p>Laurent said, “To get what you want, you have to know exactly how much you are willing to give up.” He was regarding Damen steadily. “You think your delightful Lady Jokaste doesn’t know that?”</p><p>Damen drew in a breath, steadying himself. He said, “You can stop stalling for time. The outriders have passed by now. Our way is clear.”</p><p>***</p><p>It should have been clear. Damen hadn’t been lying—an hour was more than enough time for the troop and its outriders to pass. Laurent had not seen their patterns himself, but Damen was well-versed in wartime maneuvers, and Laurent trusted his judgment. He trusted him—in this matter, at least.</p><p>But he had not accounted, perhaps, for mistakes or disruptions, for a single outrider who had come off his horse and was making his way back to the troop on foot.</p><p>There was no warning, when it happened. Laurent had reached the opposite bank of the stream; Damen was only halfway across.</p><p>There was a sudden hiss of air—the sound of a crossbow bolt—and Laurent’s horse, sensitive to sudden motion, to the rustle and swish, violently shied. It saved Laurent’s life. The horse’s screams cut into the air as its hoof skidded wrongly on one of the slippery, water-smooth river stones, so that it foundered and went down.</p><p>The sound of a horse hitting wet stony ground was a crash of flesh, heavy and terrible. Laurent knew well enough how to fall that he was not crushed by the horse’s weight, as might easily have happened, smashing his legs or back. But he had no time to get up.</p><p>He saw the flash of red, the drawn sword.</p><p>He heard, vaguely, the splash of water as Damen wheeled his horse, the ringing sound of another sword drawn—it didn’t matter. Damen was too far away. Laurent’s own sword hung useless at his side. He had no time to move, no time to act—no time to do anything but watch the flash of steel that careened towards him—</p><p>—and stopped, suddenly. The Akielon outrider’s motion was arrested; his limbs jerked to a halt. A sword had appeared, suddenly, as if by magic, in his chest. It rammed through him with shocking force, pinning him to the ground. Laurent blinked, stupefied.</p><p>Blood blossomed on the red livery. Two different shades of the same color, clashing.</p><p>Damen had ridden across the stream, was swinging off his horse, was landing on one knee on the wet stone beside Laurent. The cold water of the stream was heavy on his clothes.</p><p>“I saw you fall.” Damen’s voice was rough. Laurent heard him as if through layers of gauze—indistinct, hazy. “Are you hurt?”</p><p>Laurent forced his eyes away from the Akielon man—who was dead or dying—and realized that Damen’s sheath was empty. A series of connections unfolded: the empty sheath, the wheeling horse, the sound of the sword drawn. The blade that had appeared, suddenly, in his attacker’s chest.</p><p>“No,” said Laurent. Damen had thrown his sword—six pounds of Veretian steel—from the back of a moving horse, many feet away, to hit a moving target. “No, you got to him.” He had saved Laurent’s life. “Before.”</p><p>Damen was not looking at the man. His eyes were all on Laurent; he was passing a hand from the joint of Laurent’s neck and shoulder down over his chest, frowning, eyes darting as he searched for injury. His features were naked with concern, stripped raw. Laurent’s chest felt tight. Damen was touching him without thought, as if there was nothing more important than ensuring that Laurent was whole and unbloodied. Laurent stayed very still under his hands as the water from the stream soaked into his clothes.</p><p>“Can you stand? We need to move out. It’s not safe for you here. Too many people want to kill you.”</p><p>For a moment, breathing was painful. Laurent battled his thundering heart and said, “Everyone to the south, but only half the people to the north.”</p><p>He could not stop staring at Damen. He had clasped the forearm that Damen had extended to him, and used it to lever himself up, dripping.</p><p>Around them, there was no sound but the rushing of the stream, and a slight rattle of river stones; Laurent’s gelding, who with a massive push of his hindquarters had heaved itself up minutes ago, saddle askew, was now moving a few paces off favoring its left foreleg ominously.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” said Laurent. Then he said, “We can’t leave him here.”</p><p>He wasn’t talking about the horse.</p><p>Damen said, “I’ll do it.”</p><p>When it was finished, he walked out of the undergrowth and found a place to clean his sword.</p><p>“We have to go,” was all he said when he returned to Laurent. “They will notice when he doesn’t report back.”</p><p>***</p><p>It meant sharing a horse.</p><p>Laurent’s gelding had a limp, which Laurent, on one knee, drawing a steady hand down its lower leg until it pulled its hoof up sharply, pronounced a sprained ligament. It could follow on a lead carrying the packs, he said. It couldn’t carry a rider. Damen brought his own horse over, then paused.</p><p>“My proportions are better suited to riding pillion than yours are,” said Laurent. “Mount. I will mount behind.”</p><p>Damen swung into the saddle. A moment later Laurent followed, placing his hand on Damen’s thigh and nudging the toe of his boot into the stirrup. He pushed up behind Damen, shifting until he was snug in position. His hips fitted to Damen’s; his chest pressed to back. Once he had settled, he clasped his arms around Damen’s midsection. Sat closer, riding pillion was easier on the horse. But Laurent was aware of the heat at every point of their bodies’ meeting. He breathed slowly, carefully.</p><p>He attempted nonchalance as he said, “You have me over the back of your horse.”</p><p>“It’s not like you to give up the reins,” Damen responded, the hint of a smile in his voice.</p><p>“Well, I can’t see the way over your shoulders.”</p><p>“We could try some other arrangement.”</p><p>“You’re right: it should be me in front and you carrying the horse.”</p><p>He felt the breath that Damen released, but could not imagine his expression. He spurred the horse forward, and Laurent turned his head to the side, cheek pressed against Damen as he watched the ground blur past. His clothes were still damp; the wind felt cold against him. They were lucky to be in riding leathers rather than armor, or they would not be able to do this easily, jabbing and poking into one another. The horse’s rolling gait pushed their bodies together in constant rhythm.</p><p>They had to follow the stream to hide their tracks. It would be an hour perhaps before it was noticed that the outrider was missing. Another interval before they found the man’s horse. They would not find the man. There were no tracks to follow and no obvious place to start searching. They would decide: was a search worthwhile, or should they keep on their way? Where to search and what for? That decision would also take time.</p><p>Even riding double with a pack horse, evasion was therefore possible, although it was pushing them far out of their way. Laurent resigned himself to the fact that he would likely miss his rendezvous with Halvik. They would still have time, at least, to make it back to Ravenel before his uncle’s messengers. Damen took them up out of the stream bed several hours later, where the thick undergrowth would mask their passing.</p><p>By dusk they knew that they did not have an Akielon army following them, and slowed. Damen said: “If we stop here, we can build a fire without too much fear of discovery.”</p><p>“Here, then,” said Laurent.</p><p>Laurent saw to the horses. Damen saw to the fire. Laurent took more time than was necessary with the horses—he was not sure if it was for himself or for Damen. His own chest was a confused tangle of emotion, and he had seen Damen’s face, when he was done with the man’s body. There had been a kind of weary depth in the eyes that Laurent had never seen before, as if a light had been extinguished. He waited until Damen had built the fire and sat down beside it. He waited some time after that.</p><p>Eventually, Laurent brought the packs over and began to strip out of his wet clothes. He hung his jacket on an overhanging branch, toed off his boots, and even partially unlaced his shirt and pants, loosening everything. Damen was silent, staring at the fire with a kind of exhausted blankness that transformed his features to stone. Laurent sat on one of the rolls from the packs, close enough to the fire to dry the rest of himself—trailing laces, dishabille, and steaming lightly. He clasped his hands lightly to stop them trembling.</p><p>“I thought killing was easy for you,” said Laurent. His voice was rather quiet. “I thought you did it without thinking.”</p><p>“I’m a soldier,” said Damen, “and I have been for a long time. I’ve killed on the sawdust. I’ve killed in battle. Is that what you mean by easy?”</p><p>“You know it isn’t,” said Laurent, in that same quiet voice.</p><p>The fire was burning steadily now. The orange flames had begun hollowing out on the base of the wide center log. Laurent thought of Damianos, prince-killer. The sharp eyes, the bloody sword. The scar. He tried to reconcile that image, held in a dark part of his mind since childhood, with the man who sat across from him now.</p><p>“I know your feelings towards Akielos,” said Damen. “What happened at Breteau…it was barbaric. I know it must mean very little to you to hear me say that I’m sorry for it. And I don’t understand you, but I know that war will bring worse, and you are the only person I have seen working to stop it. I couldn’t let him hurt you.”</p><p>The questions were a pit of quicksand into which Lauren could not allow himself to sink. <em>Why? I thought you reveled in war. I thought all Akielons did. I thought you saw honor where there was only violence and bloodshed. Did you feel this way when you killed Auguste? Did you feel anything? That was war, too, wasn’t it? </em>Laurent thought of the longing he had seen in Damen’s eyes, looking at those red cloaks. He thought of the sword, thrown without hesitation to cut down one of his own countrymen. A sacrifice made; hands bloodied to stop a war.</p><p>“In my culture, it is customary to reward for good service,” said Laurent, after a long pause in which all these thoughts and more flashed through his mind. “Is there something you want?”</p><p>“You know what I want,” said Damen. He said it gently, resignation coloring his tone. Laurent's breath was tight in his chest.</p><p>“I am not going to release you,” said Laurent. “Ask for something short of that.”</p><p>“Take off one of the wrist-cuffs?” said Damen, offering a small, dry smile.</p><p>“I give you too much leeway,” said Laurent, unable to hide entirely the humor in his own voice. It had become so easy, between them.</p><p>“I think you give no more or less than you want to give, with anyone,” said Damen. It was, perhaps, too much of the truth, in the close space, over the flickering fire. Laurent found himself unable to respond. Damen looked down and away.</p><p>“There is something I want.”</p><p>“Go on.”</p><p>“Don’t try to use me against my own people,” said Damen. “If it comes to—I can’t do this again.”</p><p>“I would never have asked that of you,” said Laurent. Then, when Damen looked at him with flat disbelief: “Not out of sweetness. There is little sense in pitting a lesser sense of duty against a greater one. No leader could expect loyalty to hold under those circumstances.”</p><p>Damen said nothing to that, but looked back at the fire. His eyes seemed to absorb the light, until they flickered with the same heat.</p><p>“I’ve never seen a throw like that,” said Laurent. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Every time I see you fight, I wonder how it is Kastor got you in chains and onto a ship to my country.”</p><p>“It was…” Damen started to speak, and stopped. Laurent could see the moment he decided to continue, deliberately, honestly. He said, “I didn’t see it coming.”</p><p>Laurent could tell, from the pain that twisted at the back of the words, that it was the first time Damen had spoken them allowed. Perhaps the first time he had really admitted it. Laurent thought of himself, fourteen, riding to Chastillon with blind faith in his uncle. When Damen looked at him, he met the gaze unflinchingly.</p><p>“I’m sure you would have sidestepped it,” said Damen. “I remember the night your uncle’s men attacked you. The first time he tried to kill you. You weren’t even surprised.”</p><p>There was a silence. Words felt tangled in Laurent’s throat. He thought of a hundred times, a hundred wounds, a hundred tiny deaths. He thought of his uncle, chipping away pieces of himself. A hundred hands and a hundred nights at Chastillon.</p><p>He looked at Damen, sitting across from him, holding his own pain in open, bloodied hands.</p><p>“I was surprised,” said Laurent, “the first time.”</p><p>“The first time?” said Damen.</p><p>Another silence. The memory came, unbidden—the first time. Thirteen years old, with a cup of wine too big for his fingers. His uncle’s hand moving from the top of his head, stroking his hair, to his thigh. Laurent forced his mind away. It was a different first, a different sort of violence than what they now spoke of.</p><p>“He poisoned my horse,” said Laurent. “You saw her, the morning of the hunt. She was already feeling it, even before we rode out.”</p><p>He thought of her screams, as the blade drove through her neck. He thought of Auguste—<em>isn’t she a beauty, Laurent?</em></p><p>“That…was your uncle’s doing?”</p><p>The silence stretched out.</p><p>“It was my doing,” Laurent said. “I forced his hand when I had Torveld take the slaves to Patras. I knew when I did it…it was ten months to my ascension. Time was running out for him to make a definitive move against me. I knew that. I provoked him. I wanted to see what he would do. I just—”</p><p>Laurent broke off. His lips twisted, humorlessly.</p><p>“I didn’t think he’d really try to kill me,” he said. “After everything…even after everything. So you see I can be surprised.”</p><p>Damen said, “It’s not naïve to trust your family.”</p><p>His uncle’s voice, ringing in his mind: <em>Shhh, it’s alright. You don’t want me to leave you alone, do you? I’ll stay with you, it’s alright…</em></p><p>“I promise you, it is,” said Laurent. “But I wonder, is it less naïve than the moments when I find myself trusting a stranger, my barbarian enemy, whom I do not treat gently.”</p><p>He held Damen’s gaze, as the moment lengthened.</p><p>“I know you’re planning to leave when this border fight is done,” said Laurent. “I wonder if you’re still planning to use the knife.”</p><p>“No,” said Damen.</p><p>“We’ll see,” said Laurent.</p><p>Damen looked away, his gaze raking the dark beyond the campsite. “You really think it’s still possible to stop this war from happening?”</p><p>Laurent was silent, considering, turning the question over in his mind. When Damen returned his gaze, he nodded, a slight but steady and deliberate movement, the answer clear, unmistakable and impossible: Yes. <em>It has to be.</em></p><p>“Why didn’t you call a halt to the hunt?” said Damen. “Why ride and cover up your uncle’s treachery, if you knew your horse had been poisoned?”</p><p>“I—assumed it had been made to look as though one of the slaves had done it,” said Laurent, frowning, slightly confused; he’d thought the answer obvious.</p><p>Damen looked down, and let out a breath of what might have been laughter except that there was no amusement behind it. There was some emotion working its way through his eyes, and Laurent tried for a moment to identify it, but found that he could not. He was too aware of his heartbeat as he waited for Damen to answer, but he didn’t, instead banking the fire in silence and lying down on his roll to sleep.</p><p>***</p><p>Laurent took the first watch. His entire body was alive with tension; even if he had wanted to, he would have been unable to sleep. He listened to Damen’s quiet, steady breaths, staring out into the dark landscape of shapes past the edge of their camp.</p><p><em>It’s not naïve to trust your family. </em>He had thought the same, once. He considered, for the first time, how the betrayal must have felt to Damen, tried to imagine what he would have done if their positions were exchanged, and Auguste was placing chains around Laurent’s wrists and neck. But there was no way to map the experience; his own brother would never have betrayed him. It was the one truth he held on to, that Auguste was a good man, that Auguste was his protector. Laurent wondered, vaguely, if the difference between brother and uncle mattered when it came to a knife in the back. He considered that there was a certain kind of pain that Damen had experienced, which he could not begin to know.</p><p>And he turned, bracing himself, to face this new fact: that Damen had saved his life. In the sword flung across a stream, in blood staining Akielon livery, it felt sharper than it had in Arles, layered over assassins’ knives and fists in the dark. Laurent stared at the sleeping figure, and forced himself to acknowledge painfully that this was the man who had killed Auguste. That his brother’s killer had saved his life not once, but twice—more than that, for he might not have survived the ride south without Damen’s help.</p><p>The hate, when it came, was a slow and controlled burn. Part of him wished, desperately, that it was not true—he could not stop the fury he felt at the injustice of the situation. To end one life at the end of a sword, and save another. To twist and confuse boundaries, to overturn long-held truths. It was its own sort of wound, a painful reconciliation of two facts that should not be able to coexist: Damen had killed his brother. And despite this—despite all the pain of this, despite the heavy weight and jagged edges of it—Damen was a good man. A better man than he had any right to be. The nightmare specter of a villain that had haunted Laurent’s dreams had resolved itself into the body of the man before him, whose face was peaceful in sleep.</p><p>Distracted by these thoughts, Laurent did not notice the shifting movements in the dark until it was too late. By the time he understood what was happening, the men were on him. He found six arrows trained on him, a firm hand gripping his bicep to pull him harshly to his feet.</p><p>Damen woke with a crossbow bolt in his face. His eyes darted quickly, assessing the situation. The man standing over him gave a curt order in Vaskian dialect, and Laurent could see from slight narrowing of eyes that Damen did not understand.</p><p>Laurent repeated the order clearly in Veretian: “Get up.”</p><p>And then stumbled, as the rider restraining him twisted his arm brutally behind his back, then took a fistful of his hair and shoved his head down. Laurent didn’t struggle when his hands were lashed behind his back with strips of leather, and a wider strip fitted over his eyes as a blindfold. He just stood with his head bowed. The gag surprised him; he jerked his head back a little, reflexively, but did not fight as the cloth was shoved into his mouth. He listened, but heard no sounds of struggle from Damen, who had reviewed their position and come to the same conclusion as Laurent: they were surrounded and outnumbered. There was no choice but to succumb.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter Thirteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>content warning for sexual harassment</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lashed hard to one of the shaggy horses, Laurent endured a dark, endless ride of sensation and of sound: the clustered beats thrown by horse hooves, the blowing of equine breath, the creak of saddlery. He could feel from the straining of the horse that for the most part they travelled up—away from Akielos, away from Ravenel—into mountains full of narrow paths on either side of which was vertiginous, beetling nothing.</p><p>Realizing the identity of their captors, Laurent attempted to assess the situation calmly. The bonds were too well-tied to hope for freedom—any struggle was useless, and would result at best with a fall of many cliff-lengths or a long period of being dragged along sharp rocks if he fell from his horse. He would have to wait until they had stopped moving to determine how best to free himself and Damen of their bindings. He calculated, briefly, how far out of position they had been taken in their attempts to avoid the Akielon troops, and with some difficult resigned himself to the fact that he would not be able to count on Halvik and her riders for rescue.</p><p>After what seemed like hours, he felt his horse finally slow, then stop. A second later, he heard the distinctive sound of flesh hitting earth that likely meant Damen had been dragged from his horse. His assumption was quickly confirmed when he felt rough hands pull him from his own mount, sending him to land, hard, in the dirt. The blindfold and gag were removed; he pushed himself into a sitting position and from there to his knees.</p><p>The camp was centered around a large fire, which painted the faces of their captors in flickering, heated light. The men were dismounting from their horses, and the air was shadowed and mountain-cool, outside the fire’s circle of heat. It took only one look to confirm what Laurent had suspected from the moment of their capture.</p><p>The clans were stateless riders without settlements, fringing the hills. They were ruled by women and lived off wild meats, fish from the streams, sweet roots, and for the rest, they raided the villages.</p><p>These men were not that. This was an entirely masculine force, who had been riding together for some time, and knew how to use their weapons.</p><p>These were the men who had destroyed Tarasis—the men that he and Damen had been seeking, but who had found them, instead.</p><p>It was exactly what Laurent had intended. Unfortunately, their evasive maneuvers had taken them outside the limits of his rendezvous with Halvik. It was possible the woman might have been able to follow them, discreetly, with her riders—but Laurent doubted it. He and Damen could not rely on any outside help; they were alone, facing a troop of about fifty men. Laurent took solace in the fact that because they had been brought back to the camp, they were likely intended as a source of entertainment, and it thus followed that he had some time to formulate a plan of action for their escape. But the situation was still bleak: there was no form of fireside sport that didn’t end with them both dead. Their time, then, was limited, and at the present moment the best Laurent could hope to do was extend it.</p><p>A single look at Damen was enough to confirm their mutual understanding of the situation, and of the men who now held them prisoner. He could see, in the flashing eyes, the burns where the ropes had rubbed his skin raw, the tensed rolling of muscle, that Damen was anxious to fight, despite their odds. Laurent could not allow it. A fight now would only end with them dead.</p><p>“This time, don’t get up,” was all Laurent said.</p><p>He then rose to his feet, and called out genially, “We appreciate the warm welcome.”</p><p>It was a mad, reckless gambit, but there was little time. Akielos was moving troops along the border. The Regent’s messenger was riding southward to Ravenel. They were now almost two days ride from these events, at the mercy of these clansmen, while the working of the border spun further out of control.</p><p>The clan leader didn’t want Laurent on his feet, and strode forward, snapping, “Kneel.”</p><p>Laurent didn’t comply. He began to answer back in Vaskian, saying, “I would prefer—”</p><p>He was not allowed to finish. The man, seeing that his order had not been immediately followed, lifted his hand and brought it down sharply across Laurent’s jaw.</p><p>It was a strong blow, with the full force of the clan leader’s arm behind it. Laurent staggered back a step, paused, and then turned to the man without allowing a trace of pain to cross his features. He suggested, in deliberately and liltingly clear Vaskian dialect, “Perhaps if you used both hands, next time.”</p><p>Several of the onlooking men doubled over with laughter, clutching each other’s shoulders, while their leader rounded on them, and started shouting. With men like these, power and violence were the only means by which one could establish authority. Laurent guessed that their journey had been a tense one, with the men fractious and mistrusting each other, waiting always for someone to overpower the current leader and take his place. If he could just exploit that, undermine their leader’s authority enough, he might be able to turn them against each other and create a fight chaotic enough to allow both himself and Damen to slip away.</p><p>It almost worked. The other men stopped laughing. They started shouting back. Attention shifted. Bows lowered. Not all the bows, but enough to be promising.</p><p>Laurent felt the moment when the tension threatened to burst into violence, felt that it did not have quite enough energy to push it over. Given a handful of days, he knew, he would have these men at each other’s throats. But they didn’t have days. They had hours, at best.</p><p>Damen saw it, too. Laurent met his anxious gaze, brows raised, looking out pointedly at the men. He wanted to fight. He wanted to fight now, against unworkable odds—he likely thought it was their only chance. Laurent shook his head minutely. Just a bit more time, and he was sure he could find a way to turn the situation in their favor—a way to distract the men, or spark them to violence.</p><p>Damen frowned, but Laurent had no time for any further silent communication. The clan leader had stopped, and swung all his attention back to Laurent, who stood with his chin raised defiantly. He could guess what was coming. He saw it in the wolfish gaze that the man levied on him now. It was an expression that was all too familiar.</p><p>A sharp order, and Laurent was restrained by two men, one at each shoulder, their arms interlocking around his arms, which remained tied behind his back. Laurent did not try to tear his shoulders from the grip of the men, or wrench himself from their hands. He steeled himself for what was coming, body held in a taut grip. Some small, frightened part of his mind hope that Damen would look away, that he wouldn’t watch. He banished those thoughts—he would endure what was coming. He had a wealth of practice in endurance.</p><p>The clan leader stepped in close, breath sour and hot on Laurent’s face as he slid his hand slowly down over Laurent’s body. The touch made his skin crawl; he locked himself in place, jaw closed hard. He would not move, he would not scream, he would not cry. He braced himself for pain, already detaching his mind from his body.</p><p>Laurent thought, with a sort of sad, sick humor, that he had been prepared well for this. He had learned, at Chastillon, how to separate himself, how to stare at a carving of a speared boar until what was happening to his body felt like it was happening to someone else, to a boy he did not know. He fixed his gaze on the flickering fire, and began the process of alienating himself from his skin.</p><p>And then, suddenly, there was movement. Laurent was drawn painfully, sharply, back into himself—mind into body—as Damen surged to his feet, face twisted into an expression of rage that made Laurent’s blood run cold. Two men drew their swords; Damen crashed with amazing force into one, slamming him back onto the other’s blade, using the body as a shield. Three men grabbed wildly at his arms, and he broke free of their restraint with a surge of overwhelming strength. Another man charged him; Damen used the momentum to throw him to the ground, crushing the man’s throat under his boot.</p><p>It was like watching a wave come crashing towards the shore. The unrestrained power felt feral, a sharp-toothed force of nature, as Damen waded through men like quicksand. His eyes were bloodthirsty, and locked on the clan leader.</p><p>It took nine men to restrain him. It was only when he had been forced to the ground that the rage seemed to subside slightly, some measure of clarity returning. He surveyed the damage he had caused, chest heaving, hair damp with sweat. In the flickering light of the fire, he looked unhuman, like a demon or god.</p><p>Laurent’s heart was pounding with such force that it felt as if it was trying to break its way out of his ribcage. The clan leader was no longer paying him any attention; all the men were focused on Damen.</p><p>Fear, cold and animal, turned Laurent’s veins to ice. This was exactly what he had meant to avoid. As long as they remained a negligible threat, the men would keep them alive as a form of entertainment. Damen had just destroyed that façade. He had made himself too dangerous to keep alive. Laurent was safe, of course—it was very clear what sort of entertainment they thought he was good for. But Damen was going to die, right here, right now, in the middle of these unforgiving mountains. He was going to die because Laurent had led them here, had led them into the hands of these men.</p><p><em>Kill him</em>, came the order.</p><p>Damen struggled. It did very little. His hands, after all, were tied, and the men were bringing all their force to bear on the task of holding him back. Laurent watched as a sword was unsheathed, the edge of the blade touched to Damen’s neck. He felt dizzy, gasping in shallow breaths. There had to be a way, there had to be <em>something</em>—entertainment, he thought, these men wanted entertainment—the sword was lifted, a flash of silver in the air—</p><p>And Laurent spoke, in clipped Vaskian. It took every bit of his will to keep the words steady, unhurried. He did not look at Damen as he said it.</p><p>The sword halted. Damen’s head stayed where it was, attached to his neck. Laurent released a breath of relief.</p><p>In the ringing silence, the clan leader studied Laurent. His lips twisted up in a cruel smile. They could both sense the approval from the surrounding men. Still smiling, the clan leader approached Damen and repeated Laurent’s words, in guttural, thickly accented Veretian:</p><p>“He says, ‘Fast death doesn’t hurt.’” And then, smilingly, applied his fist to Damen’s stomach.</p><p>***</p><p>Laurent watched, unflinching, as the men brutalized Damen. His left side got the worst of it: blunt, unimaginative pain. When he struggled, he was cracked on the head with a club, and Laurent saw his eyes momentarily lose focus. But he held hard to consciousness, jaw set and gaze burning. Laurent swallowed the knot in his throat. The unyielding blows and the sound of flesh impacting flesh echoed another beating, another time, when wine had turned the edges of Laurent’s vision red and hate had been a stone in his heart.</p><p>When brutalizing their prisoner began distracting the other men from their duties about camp, the clan leader ordered the business end of things to be taken elsewhere. Four men dragged Damen up, then prodded him at sword point away from the campfire and into the dark woods beyond the outskirts of the tents.</p><p>Laurent’s gut twisted nauseatingly with a mix of relief and apprehension. It was impossible to know, entirely, the extent of the damage the beating had done. But he had seen Damen fight; even with his hands tied and his body bruised, Laurent liked the odds. Four against one was much more achievable than fifty against one. Laurent could only hope that, after his outburst in the camp, Damen would know better than to charge back after dispatching the men without a plan.</p><p>Laurent turned his attention to his own situation. Night was falling; the men in camp were preparing bedrolls and setting shifts for watch. Now that the entertainment with Damen had been relegated to the outskirts of the camp, the clan leader’s interest had returned to Laurent.</p><p>There was no telling how long it would take Damen to free himself and dispense with his captors. And even once he was free, he would be no match for an entire troop of men on his own—especially not wounded. Their best bet would be to wait until after nightfall. If Damen could sneak into the camp and free Laurent, the two of them might be able to slip away. Stealing horses and evading the guards would be difficult, but it was the only option that Laurent now saw.</p><p>Unfortunately, there was no way to communicate any of that to Damen. All Laurent could do was attempt to maneuver towards the outskirts of camp, where he would have a better chance of slipping away unnoticed if the opportunity arose.</p><p>The clan leader, however, had different plans. Having satisfied the need for public spectacle, he now instructed the two men who had previously restrained Laurent to bring the prisoner to his tent. From the wolfish smiles this command met with, there could be little doubt about the clan leader’s intentions.</p><p>The sharp point of a sword at his back was sufficient motivation to propel Laurent forward. He repressed the surge of panic that flooded him. He had already known this was likely to happen. He told himself that it was a small victory, at least, that he was being taken to a tent, where there would be fewer pairs of eyes watching him. It was a small victory, also, that the clan leader dismissed the guards—one captor was much better than three. Inside the tent, Laurent steeled himself; any immediate attempt at escape would be foolish. He could only hope to prolong the inevitable long enough for Damen to kill four men.</p><p>“You attacked Tarasis,” Laurent said, once they were alone.</p><p>The crooked grin spread across the clan leader’s face: “You are the Veretian prince.”</p><p>Laurent’s heart beat frantically—there was no denial, no attempt to obscure the facts of this situation. It meant that the clan leader did not expect the prince to live long enough to relay these words to anyone of consequence. The smile grew as he said, “I received very specific instructions for you.”</p><p>“From the Regent,” said Laurent. The clan leader only smiled. “What did he tell you?”</p><p>“He said you would come looking. He said you would come alone, without your troops or your men. He said,” and now the man was drawing nearer, “that I could do anything I wanted with you. He even offered a few suggestions.”</p><p>“As long as it ends with me dead,” Laurent filled in, blandly. He forced himself to remain still as the rough fingers found his skin. “You were a fool to make deals with my uncle. He will kill you, and your men.”</p><p>The clan leader laughed. His breath was hot, the smell of wine soured in his throat.</p><p>“What did he offer you?” Laurent asked, desperately, for the man was tugging at laces now, intent on his course of action. If Laurent could just keep him talking—if he could just delay him—</p><p>But the question was met with a fist to the stomach that violently robbed all the breath from Laurent’s lungs.</p><p>“Enough talking.”</p><p>Laurent remained frozen, even as every nerve in his body screamed that he should struggle, should fight, should run. <em>This buys us time, </em>he told himself, forcefully, <em>time that we need. I can endure this. </em>He tried not to wonder how long it would last.</p><p>And then there was the sound of hooves, and the world came apart.</p><p>***</p><p>Halvik was a more enterprising woman than Laurent had expected, with much more capable trackers. Given a rendezvous, she was determined to meet it, even if it meant chasing the Veretian prince miles outside of their agreed-upon range. Laurent felt a giddy burst of gratitude, for that.</p><p>Inside the tent, he could not immediately discern the exact nature of the commotion. But there was the unmistakable hiss of arrows, the shouting of the men, the heavy stampede of horses. The clan leader shoved Laurent roughly away and tore out, realizing that he was under attack. Laurent was left alone, with no restraints other than the rope that bound his hands behind his back. If the man thought that would be enough to dissuade Laurent from taking some independent action, he was a fool.</p><p>He exited the tent to witness chaos. Steel flashed and arrows flew as Halvik’s women rode in and divided seamlessly, five riders to go through the camp, and ten each on either side. At first they were dark, unidentifiable moving shapes. Then there was a sudden flare of light—two of the riders had snatched up half-burnt branches from the fire, and dropped them on tents, whose skins burst into flame. Lit-up, Laurent could see clearly what he had already known: these were Halvik’s women—the traditional warriors of the clans—riding ponies that could leap like chamois and dart about in formations like fish in clear stream water.</p><p>But the men were familiar with these tactics, being of the clans themselves. Instead of dissolving into panic and disorder, they only scrambled briefly before several of them peeled off, and made hard for the rocks and the surrounding dark, slashing and searching, to cut down the archers. Others made for the horses, and with a leap were astride.</p><p>It was different to every kind of fighting Laurent knew; the vicious blade cuts were different, the horsemanship, the uneven ground, the twisting tactics in the dark. This was clan warfare at night. Under the same conditions, his own men would have been overrun in an instant. The clans knew more about mountain fighting than anyone alive.</p><p>Laurent found his way to the fringes of the camp, towards the edge of the fighting. He would not be much good in battle with his hands tied. He positioned himself on the same route that had been taken when Damen was led out of camp. If he returned, it would likely be from this direction—and it was the only way out of the camp that was not defended by women. Once Laurent had freed himself of his restraints, he would need to make sure that none of the men who had attacked Tarasis escaped.</p><p>Having thus positioned himself, he began searching for some means by which he might remove the ropes circling his wrists. But his hands were still tied behind his back when a firm grip suddenly took hold of him, spinning him around. Adrenaline surged; Laurent prepared himself for a fight—but it was only Damen. He pulled out a knife and cut Laurent’s hands free.</p><p>Laurent kept his voice nonchalant, betraying none of the panic he had felt at the touch. “What took you so long?”</p><p>“You planned this?” said Damen. Then, as a series of realizations unfolded behind his eyes, “You arranged a counterattack with the women, then came out here as bait to draw out the men.” Grimly, “If you knew we were going to be rescued—”</p><p>“I thought evading that Akielon troop drove us too far out of our way, and that we’d missed our rendezvous with the women. He did hit me too,” said Laurent.</p><p>“Once,” said Damen. And swept up his sword in the way of the man coming towards them. The man, expecting a kill, was startled to find his slashing blow met. Then he was dead. Laurent withdrew the point of the knife from the man’s ribcage and did not argue further. There was no need to mention what had happened inside the tent, after Damen had been dragged away. And besides, the fighting was now on them.</p><p>Laurent, standing beside Damen, was efficient. Acquiring the fallen man’s short clan sword, he inserted himself at Damen’s left, to shore up his injured side. Despite this, Damen continued to fight as if he were alone, bringing his sword down on enemies with great powerful blows that were as deadly as they were precise. He acted almost as if Laurent was in need of protection, until the moment when a clansman attacked from the left, and Damen, bracing himself hard, found that Laurent was there, meeting the man’s blade and dispatching him with efficient grace. Damen, insultingly disconcerted, seemed to realize that Laurent was not a damsel in need of saving and could take care of himself well enough—seemed to realize that he was not the only one fighting.</p><p>From that moment on, they fought side by side. Trying to flee, men came in ones and twos, charging towards them. To ensure that no men escaped to tell their tale to the Regent, Damen and Laurent fought together, killing with efficient purpose. It worked, until a man came galloping towards them on a horse.</p><p>It was difficult to kill a galloping horse with a sword. It was more difficult to kill the man riding the horse, high up out of range. Laurent stood in the path, appraising the situation, trying quickly to determine where best to strike his blow—when Damen took a handful of his jacket and pulled him hard out of the way. Laurent was about to protest, but in the next second the rider was killed by a woman, also on horseback, that Laurent had not seen. The man flopped forward in the saddle while his horse slowed, then stopped.</p><p>Around them, the tents had burned down almost to nothing, but there was enough light to see that victory was emerging. Of the men in the camp, half were dead. The other half had surrendered—or, more accurately, had been subdued, one by one, and were being bound as prisoners.</p><p>Moonlight and the last smoldering remnants of the fire: a new woman had arrived on horseback, flanked by two attendants, and was being led through the camp towards them.</p><p>“One of us needs to view the dead and the prisoners, to make sure no one escaped,” said Damen, eyes on the approaching woman.</p><p>Laurent said, “I’ll do it. Later.”</p><p>He wrapped a hand around Damen’s bicep in a firm grip, pulling.</p><p>“Down,” said Laurent.</p><p>Damen went to his knees, and Laurent lay punctuating fingers on Damen’s shoulder to keep him there.</p><p>The clanswoman swung down from her stocky horse. She showed her status with a great cloak of fur that wrapped around her shoulders. She was older than the other women, by at least thirty years. Black-eyed and stony-faced, Laurent recognized her from the moment he saw her moving towards them on the horse. It was Halvik.</p><p>The last time they had spoken, it had been on a dais, surrounded by soft furs. Now, her flinty voice was exactly as he remembered, although this time when she spoke, it was in heavily accented Veretian.</p><p>“We will re-light the fires. We camp here tonight. The men will be guarded. A good fight, many captives.”</p><p>Laurent said, “The clan leader is dead?”</p><p>“He is dead.” Then, she added, “You fight well. It’s a shame you do not have the size to breed great warriors. But you are not malformed. Your woman may not be displeased.” Then, in the spirit of benevolence, “Your face is well balanced.” She slapped him encouragingly on the back, “You have very long eyelashes. Like a cow. Come. We will sit together, drink, and eat meats. Your slave is virile. Later he will service at the coupling fire.”</p><p>Next to him, Damen frowned. Laurent thought of the beating he had taken, the hours spent in bindings, the fighting that had just ended.</p><p>He answered in a hard, unyielding voice, “The slave lies in no bed but mine.”</p><p>“You couple with men, in the Veretian style?” said Halvik. “Then he will be taken and prepared for you; he will be given good cuts of meat, and <em>hakesh</em>, so that when he mounts you, his endurance will bring you great pleasure. You see? This is Vaskian hospitality.”</p><p>***</p><p>They were separated, Damen carted off by a group of women and Laurent following Halvik to survey the dead and captured. No men had escaped; the prisoners were securely bound, under guard.</p><p>By this time, the camp was cleared, and the newly pitched tents looked like softly glowing globes, the light from lamps inside turning the tent skins to warm gold. The campfires were re-lit, the dais erected. Laurent ate with Halvik, though he politely refused the drink she offered, and discussed arrangements for the following day. The men, horses, and weapons now belonged to her—but Laurent needed some of the prisoners to bring back to Ravenel. They agreed on ten, with a retinue of Vaskian escorts who would accompany them back to the camp at Breteau.</p><p>After the meal, Laurent was led away by a few smiling attendants. He was washed with cold water from the mountain streams, and his filthy, torn clothes were replaced with soft Vaskian garments. Halvik gifted him with an impressive fur cloak, which he wrapped around his shoulders gratefully. He was led back through the camp, raking his gaze across the campfire, but saw no sign of Damen.</p><p>He did not have to wonder for very long about where they had taken the other man. Laurent was led to a low tent, informed that it comprised his accommodations for the night, and was left alone. He released a breath of relief, lifting the tent flap and moving inside, feeling the weight of exhaustion across his limbs.</p><p>It was a very small tent; long, and low, the inside intimate, thick with furs, layers of chamois, and on the top fox fur, treated and softer than the underbelly of a rabbit. And it was hospitably equipped, for men’s pleasure. The foot of the tent held a jug of <em>hakesh, </em>a second jug of water, a hanging lamp, cloths, and three small stoppered bottles containing oils that were not for the lamp.</p><p>It contained also, sprawled across the furs and taking up the majority of the available space, Damen.</p><p>He was lying relaxed, limbs curled. He had been given considerably less clothing than Laurent—at first glance, he appeared naked. Laurent’s heart crawled into his throat.</p><p>When Damen saw Laurent enter, surprise flickered in his eyes. But he remained relaxed, pushing himself up on an elbow, and propping his head on his hand, fingers in his hair. He had also been washed and dried and—after a moment Laurent’s eyes located the brief loincloth wrapped around his waist—dressed. For a moment, Laurent found himself unable to do anything but blink, mutely, at the figure before him. His body was like something carved out of stone.</p><p>Meeting Damen’s eyes eventually, Laurent said, “Here’s to Vaskian hospitality.”</p><p>“It’s a traditional garment. All the men wear them,” said Damen, eyeing Laurent’s fur cloak with curiosity.</p><p>Laurent dropped the cloak from his shoulders, revealing the loosely tied linen bedclothes. He attempted the casual humor that they had cultivated over weeks on the campaign, unsure why his heart insisted on beating at such a frantic pace.</p><p>“Mine has a little more fabric. Are you disappointed?”</p><p>“I would be,” said Damen, rearranging his legs on the furs, “If the lamp weren’t behind you.”</p><p>It arrested Laurent’s motion, in a pose with one knee on the furs and a palm too, just for a moment, before he stretched his body out alongside Damen’s.</p><p>Unlike Damen, he did not fully lie himself down on the furs, but sat, leaning his weight on his hands.</p><p>Damen said: “Thank you for—” he hesitated, then gestured generally to the inside of the tent.</p><p>“Asserting droit de seigneur?” Laurent asked wryly. Then, after a pause, “How inflamed are you?”</p><p>“Stop it. I didn’t drink the <em>hakesh.</em>”</p><p>“I’m not sure that’s quite what I asked,” said Laurent. He leveled his gaze at Damen, “This is close quarters.”</p><p>“Close enough to see your eyelashes,” said Damen. “It’s lucky you do not have the size to breed great warriors.” He fell silent. There was a soft flush across his cheekbones.</p><p>Part of Laurent recoiled at the warmth between them—it was all wrong, it was twisted up in thoughts of Chastillon and Marlas. But he was still giddy, a bit, with all the small victories of the day, and his limbs were loose with exhaustion, and the warmth of the small tent sunk into his bones.</p><p>“My size,” said Laurent, “is the usual. I am not made in miniature. It’s a problem of scale, standing next to you.”</p><p>The soft fur had warmed with his skin, and he gazed down at Damen with a small, unguarded smile. The corners of Damen’s mouth were curved up a little.</p><p>After a slight pause, Laurent said, carefully, “I realize that in my service you do not have a great deal of opportunity to pursue the usual—avenues for release. If you need to avail yourself of the coupling fire—”</p><p>“No,” said Damen. “I don’t want a woman.”</p><p>Laurent felt like a man trying to look into the sun. Something inside his skull was burning, but his blood was still singing with heat. The drums outside were a low, continuous throb.</p><p>He said, “Sit up.”</p><p>Sitting up, Damen took up all of the extra space in the tent. He was now looking down at Laurent, eyes flickering like the low flame of the lamp.</p><p>Laurent reached into his cloak and withdrew a cloth, holding it bunched in his hand like a poultice. His eyes dropped to the darkening bruises across Damen’s left side.</p><p>“What are you—” Damen’s voice was bemused.</p><p>“Hold still,” said Laurent, and lifted the cloth.</p><p>Damen started, muscles across his chest and stomach flinching reflexively at the shock of the cold. The warmth in his gaze had been subsumed, momentarily, by surprise.</p><p>“Were you expecting a salve?” said Laurent. “They brought it for you from further up the slope.” <em>I asked them for it, </em>he didn't say. </p><p>Ice. It was ice wrapped in cloth, pressed steadily to the bruising on Damen’s left side. His ribcage rose and fell with his breath. Laurent held it firm. He felt the ice growing warmer, the cloth becoming damp as it began to drip under his fingers. Damen’s body, held tense at first, began slowly to relax.</p><p>Laurent stared at the yellows and purples bleeding together across Damen’s skin. He remembered the sound each blow had made as it landed, the sickening crack of hard knuckles against unprotected flesh.</p><p>Laurent said, “I told the clansmen to make it hurt.”</p><p>Damen said, “It saved my life.”</p><p>There was still a stone in the pit of Laurent’s stomach as he studied the effects of the beating. After a pause, he said, “Since I can’t throw a sword.”</p><p>Damen took hold of the cloth himself, as Laurent withdrew. Laurent said:</p><p>“You know by now that these were the same men who attacked Tarasis. Halvik and her riders will escort ten of them with us to Breteau, and from there to Ravenel, where I will use them to try to lever this border deadlock open.” Adding, as a sticky tendril of guilt wormed its way through him: “Halvik receives the rest of the men, and all of the weapons.”</p><p>Damen understand the conclusion of that arrangement. “She has agreed to use the weapons raiding Akielos to the south, rather than anywhere inside your borders.”</p><p>“Something like that.”</p><p>“And at Ravenel, you mean to expose your uncle as the sponsor of the attack.”</p><p>“Yes,” said Laurent. “I think…things are about to become very dangerous.”</p><p>He thought of his uncle’s messenger, who by now had likely arrived at the fort.</p><p>“About to become,” said Damen.</p><p>“Touars is the one who needs convincing. If you hated Akielos,” said Laurent, “more than anything, and you’d been given one chance to hit them as never before, what would stop you? Why would you put down your sword?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t,” said Damen. “Maybe if I was angrier at someone else.”</p><p>Laurent let out an unsteady breath, then looked away. He was not sure why the words gripped him, and pulled him painfully into the memory of who he was speaking with. Outside, the drums were ceaseless, but seemed like something distant, apart from the quiet space in the tent.</p><p>“This is not the way I planned to spend the eve of war,” said Laurent.</p><p>“With me in your bed?”</p><p>“And in my confidences,” said Laurent.</p><p>He said it deliberately, returning his eyes to Damen’s. Words collected on the tip of his tongue, bitter and sweet, and threatened to spill out. <em>You could have left. I never expected you to stay. You could have had me in your power, at the mercy of an Akielon troop. I almost got you killed. What made you throw your sword? Why did you do it?</em></p><p>Instead of speaking he pushed the cloak out of the way, and lay himself down. The shift in position signaled the end of the conversation, though Laurent drew his wrist to his forehead, retreating into the confusing tangle of his inner thoughts.</p><p>He said: “Tomorrow will be a long day. Thirty miles of mountains, with prisoners. We should sleep.”</p><p>The ice had melted, leaving a wet cloth. Damen removed it. There were droplets of water on the planes of his torso; he wiped them off, then tossed the cloth to the far end of the tent. Laurent lay relaxed, unfocused, for a moment, allowing his eyes to trace the line of a single escaped droplet that ran over the ribcage and down Damen’s side. But after a moment Laurent turned his eyes elsewhere, and then closed them, and they both made their way to sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter Fourteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Your Highness!” Jord, on horseback, was hailing them. He was accompanied by two other riders with torches, lighting up the dark. “We’d sent out scouts to find you."</p><p>“Call them back,” said Laurent.</p><p>Jord reined in, nodding.</p><p>Thirty miles of mountains, with prisoners. It had taken twelve hours, a slow plodding trip with the men swaying and struggling in the saddles, occasionally clubbed into stupefied obedience by the women.</p><p>It had been a long day with a discomfiting beginning. He had woken relaxed, which was unusual, in the early hours of morning. His body had tensed immediately as he became aware of the presence next to him, but unwound as he recalled the events of the previous night and who it was that lay beside him. Damen was sleeping, face wiped clean of all expression, close enough that Laurent could feel the heat from his body.</p><p>In the unobtrusive peace of the gray, pre-dawn light, Laurent studied him. He watched the slight movement of the long lashes, the parting of lips, the rise and fall of the chest with steady breaths. Laurent felt, dizzily, that he was on the threshold of something important, in a space where something outside his grasp was changing. He remembered another time, another tent, and felt his heart stutter in his chest.</p><p>Laurent left the tent. He oversaw the preparations to transport the prisoners with Halvik. He engineered the return of both his own and Damen’s clothing for the ride. He watched the women pack up their camp. The sun rose on the ashes of the fires.</p><p>The day’s ride that had followed had been almost unsettlingly uneventful. They had reached gentler slopes by mid-afternoon, and—for once—there had been no ambushes or interruptions. The spreading rise and fall of the hillside had been quiet, stretching out to the south and the west, the only break in its peace the unlikeliness of their own procession: Laurent riding at the head of a band of Vaskian women on shaggy ponies, escorting his ten prisoners, roped and tied, and lashed to their horses.</p><p>Now it was nightfall, and the horses were exhausted, dropping their necks, some of them, and the prisoners had long since stopped struggling. Jord fell into formation beside them.</p><p>“Breteau is cleared,” Jord was saying. “Lord Touars’ men rode back to Ravenel this morning. We chose to stay on and wait. There has been no word from any direction—the border or the forts or—yourself. The men were starting to get twitchy. They’ll be glad of your return.”</p><p>“I want them ready to ride out at dawn,” said Laurent.</p><p>Jord nodded, then glanced helplessly at the band and its prisoners.</p><p>“Yes, they are the men who caused these border attacks,” said Laurent, answering the question that had not been asked.</p><p>“They don’t look Akielon,” said Jord.</p><p>“No,” said Laurent.</p><p>Jord nodded grimly, and they crested the last rise to see the shadows and the points of light of the nighttime camp.</p><p>***</p><p>The embroidery came later, in the retelling, as the story was told again and again by the men, taking on its own character as it passed over camp.</p><p>The Prince had ridden out, with only one soldier. Deep in the mountains, he had chased down the rats responsible for these killings. Had ripped them out of their hiding holes and fought them, thirty to one, at least. Had brought them back thrashed, lashed, and subdued. That was their Prince for you, a twisty, vicious fiend who you should never, ever cross, unless you wanted your gullet handed to you on a platter. Why, he once rode a horse to death just to beat Torveld of Patras to the mark.</p><p>In the men’s eyes the feat was reflected as the wild, impossible thing it was—their Prince vanishing for two days, then appearing out of the night with a sackful of prisoners thrown over his shoulder, tossing them at the feet of his troop and saying: You wanted them? Here they are.</p><p>But Laurent could not allow himself to relax into the victory. He retreated to his tent, remembering the words of the clan rider’s leader: <em>He said you would come looking. He said you would come alone, without your troops or your men.</em></p><p>The Regent had expected Laurent to seek out the men who attacked Tarasis. Possibly, he had expected his nephew to be killed. But Laurent knew better than to think that his uncle had not prepared for every contingency, no matter how unlikely. Even with the prisoners, the Regent would be ready to refute any evidence Laurent brought back to Ravenel.</p><p>Furthermore, they would now be absent four days from Lord Touars’ fort. Assuming good horses and good roads, the Regent’s messenger would certainly have arrived, beating them to Ravenel by at least a day. Whatever plan his uncle had made would already be set in motion by the time they returned.</p><p>It had probably happened this morning, while Laurent was rising in the early hours of dawn—the messenger pounding into the fort’s dwarfing open courtyard, being quickly ushered into the great hall, and all the lords of Ravenel gathering to hear his message. This, in the absence of the wastrel prince who had flitted off during a crisis and not returned as he had promised, missing the moment when he most needed to be taken seriously, to forge decisions and shape events. In that sense, he was already too late.</p><p>Laurent stepped outside and gazed across the camp. Breteau looked very different to the last time he had seen it. Instead of piles of burning wood, there was cleared ground. The half-open pits were filled in. The broken spears and the signs of fighting were gone. Dwellings that were damaged beyond repair had been neatly stripped down for materials.</p><p>The camp itself was a series of ordered geometric tents pitched west of the village. Sloping canvas was pulled taut in rigorous lines, with his own tent positioned at the far end of camp, which had been prepared for him despite his absence. Between the ranked columns, men proceeded in friendlier, less rigid paths to and from the campfires.</p><p>Laurent remembered the first night at Chastillon, the sloppy work, the fights, the poor standard of soldiering. The Regent had thrown him a chaotic rabble of men, and Laurent had stamped it into ordered lines. But any swell of pride at this reflection was dampened by the knowledge that he may be leading these men to their deaths the following morning.</p><p>He let the cool evening air pass over him, reflecting on his own countermoves and preparations. They would be riding into a fight tomorrow—he was almost certain of it. He could only hope that the troops he had gathered would be enough to thwart whatever challenge his uncle threw down.</p><p>And in the cool evening air, he let himself face it, in a way he had not allowed himself to face it before.</p><p>War.</p><p>It was on the horizon, rising as sure as the sun. In preventing a fight with Akielos—in fighting his uncle, instead—Laurent knew he would likely be facing a civil war in his own country. He had brought back the prisoners, the evidence he had thought might be sufficient to prevent bloodshed, but he was, at this point, almost certainly too late. The deadline to waylay his uncle’s plans had passed.</p><p>The Regent wanted war, and he would have it. Despite every small victory, Laurent felt more than ever how trapped he was in his uncle’s games. He could stamp a force of mercenaries into order, overcome ambushes, track down and neuter the force of riders paid off by the Regent—and still, all he had really accomplished was a shift in direction of the upcoming battle.</p><p>As he watched his men, listening to the distant laughter from the campfires, he felt the cold grip of fear on the back of his neck. He allowed it; absorbed it; turned it to steely ice, lining his veins. He hardened himself. He might be stuck in his uncle’s game, but he <em>would </em>outplay him—he had no other choice.</p><p>***</p><p>Laurent was seated with an elbow on the table, studying a map, when Damen came into the tent. Braziers warmed the space; lamps illuminated with the gleam of flame light.</p><p>“One more night,” said Damen.</p><p>“Keep the prisoners alive, keep the women on side, keep my men from the women,” said Laurent, as though reciting from a checklist. “Come over here and talk geography.”</p><p>Damen came as he was bid, and took a seat opposite Laurent, across the map.</p><p>Laurent prompted him to discuss—again, and in meticulous detail—every inch of land between here and Ravenel, as well as along the northeastern section of border. Damen complied, and they talked for several hours, drawing comparisons in quality of slopes and ground with the country they had just ridden through.</p><p>The camp outside had fallen into the quiet of deep night when Laurent finally detached his attention from the map and said, “All right. If we do not stop now, we will go all night.”</p><p>He rose, turning away from Damen. He had remained carefully poised throughout the evening, holding the anxiety that swelled when he thought of his uncle in an iron grip that strangled the breath from its lungs. There was no room for uncertainty, no room for anything less than perfect control. Now, approaching sleep, he let the smallest bit of exhaustion loosen his limbs as he absently lifted his hand to his wrist to begin unfastening the lacing there.</p><p>“Here,” said Damen. “Let me.”</p><p>Laurent blinked as Damen rose and stepped in, fingers working quickly and gently at the laces lining his wrists, then moving to his back. The jacket split open like a pea shell, and Damen pushed it off.</p><p>Released from the weight of the jacket, Laurent rolled his shoulder unthinkingly, feeling the ache after a long day in the saddle. There was the sudden heat of fingers, and gentle pressure—Damen was squeezing his shoulder. Laurent went very still, shock spiking through his body at the touch. His muscles were locked with tension.</p><p>“Stiff?” said Damen, casually.</p><p>For a moment, Laurent found himself unable to speak. Then, attempting to match the nonchalance, “A little.”</p><p>Damen brought his other hand up to Laurent’s other shoulder, twin points of heated pressure against his back. His grip was matter-of-fact, impersonal—yet it set Laurent’s heart pounding in his chest.</p><p>Laurent said, “The soldiers in Kastor’s army are trained in massage?”</p><p>“No,” said Damen. “But I think the rudiments are easy to master. If you like.”</p><p>He applied a gentle pressure with his thumbs. He said, “You brought me ice, last night.”</p><p>“This,” said Laurent, “is a little more—” it was a word of sharp points: “—intimate,” he said, “than ice.”</p><p>“Too intimate?” Damen said. Slowly, he was kneading Laurent’s shoulders.</p><p>His mind spun; his heart was a frightened animal. Some part of him felt the need to run, even as he stood unmoving.</p><p>And then, at the apsis of his thumbs, a muscle shifted beneath pressure, unlocking a sequence all the way down Laurent’s back. Laurent heart himself say, unwillingly, “I…There.”</p><p>“Here?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>He released himself, slowly, under Damen’s hands; the movements were undeviating, utilitarian. Damen’s breath was warm on the back of Laurent’s neck. He felt like a man balanced on a precipice, holding his breath, on the edge of some unknown danger. His breathing was shallow, and carefully controlled.</p><p>The slow kneading continued; his muscles shifted, unconsciously, and he found himself repressing the slight unraveling. Still, Damen noticed.</p><p>“Like this?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>His head dropped forward a little. Laurent had no idea what he was doing—why he wasn’t moving away, shrugging out from under the touch. The past felt sharp against the present; there was the ghost of another touch, the unguarded way Damen’s hands had slid down his body. Yet it was somehow distant; in the baths, Laurent had felt the wariness of a man under attack. Now the tension between them shifted, still two men on a battlefield, but the touch was a white flag. Laurent stood, frozen, unsure if he had the strength to accept the offering.</p><p>The physical sensation was simple, uncomplicated. There was no artifice in the motion of the fingers against his back. Damen moved his hands only enough to seek out new muscles to unknot. Yet, somehow, the candor of the moment only made it feel more dangerous.</p><p>“Is it so hard to relax?” said Damen, quietly. “You only have to walk outside to see what you’ve accomplished. Those men are yours.”</p><p>It was too much. His voice was gentle, low in his throat, warm as the flames burning in the braziers. “Whatever happens tomorrow, you’ve done more than anyone could—”</p><p>“That’s enough,” said Laurent, pushing himself away sharply.</p><p>When he turned to face Damen, his breathing was shallow. Damen’s eyes were searching, moving over his face like a man attempting to read a map. Laurent lifted a hand to his shoulder, unconsciously, as if his fingers would meet the hands that had been, moments before, against his back. Which was ridiculous—Damen’s arms lay, immobile, at his sides.</p><p>The tension still rippled under his skin, but the movement was a little easier. Realizing that, Laurent said, haltingly, “Thank you.” And then, collecting himself: “Getting tied up leaves an impression. I didn’t realize being captured was so uncomfortable.”</p><p>“Well, it is.” Damen’s voice was not quite normal, still coming from somewhere low in his chest.</p><p>“I promise I’ll never tie you to the back of a horse,” said Laurent. The words were thorns on a rosebush, stinging, not entirely sweet.</p><p>He gazed at Damen, acid churning in his stomach. <em>Things haven’t changed between us. You must understand things haven’t changed. </em>There was a pause as he waited for some confirmation, some reification of their reality and the inescapable fact of the gold collar and cuffs.</p><p>“That’s right, I’m still captured,” said Damen.</p><p>“Your eyes say, ‘For now,’” Laurent said. The words leapt, unbidden, from the back of his throat. “Your eyes have always said, ‘For now.’” It felt like an admission, like the honesty had been wrenched from his gut. “If you were a pet, I would have gifted you enough by now to buy out your contract, many times over.”</p><p>“I’d still be here,” said Damen, “with you. I told you that I would see this border dispute through to its finish. Do you think I’d go back on my word?”</p><p>“No,” said Laurent, admitting for the first time the slow realization that had crept, like a cat stalking a bird, through the back of his mind. “I don’t think you would. But I know you don’t like it. I remember how much it maddened you in the palace, to be bound and powerless. I felt yesterday how badly you wanted to hit someone.”</p><p>Damen moved before Laurent could process it, his fingers lifting to touch the bruised edge of Laurent’s jaw. He said, “The man who did this to you.”</p><p>Laurent jerked back from the touch, from the heat of it, from its softness and from the open well of pupil that was Damen’s gaze. He forgot, for a moment, to breathe.</p><p>Damen blinked, as if the sudden movement had broken some spell, and his expression fell as if veiled. His brow furrowed; his mouth tugged down in a remorseful frown.</p><p>“I’m sorry. I…know better than that.” He took a step back, deliberately. He said, “I think…I had better report to the watch. I can take a shift tonight.”</p><p>He turned to leave, and Laurent felt dizzy, caught in a wave of tangled emotion. He watched Damen retreat, saw him make it all the way to the tent’s entrance before something broke open in his chest, and he opened his mouth to speak.</p><p>“No. Wait. I…wait.”</p><p>Damen stopped, and turned. There was that same searching in his eyes. Laurent could feel, still, the flicker of warmth between them, like an ember. It was a promise and a threat, something he could not entirely face. He looked at the man before him and reminded himself, forcefully, of Auguste, but the thoughts were all tangled up in gentle hands and dimpled smiles and low, small tents, filled with furs. He felt some indecipherable need to expel—<em>something.</em> Like peeling back a bandage to reveal a wound, the places where past and present met on his body, and left him raw.</p><p>“What Govart said about my brother and I…it wasn’t true.”</p><p>The words were not what Damen expected. “I never thought it was,” he said, carefully, uneasy. Laurent could see that he was uncomfortable, but he pressed on.</p><p>“I mean that whatever…whatever taint exists in my family, Auguste was free of it.”</p><p>“Taint?”</p><p>“I wanted to tell you that, because you,” Laurent forced the words out, like surrendering a piece of himself, “You remind me of him. He was the best man I have ever known. You deserve to know that, as you deserve at least a fair…In Arles, I treated you with malice and cruelty. I will not insult you by attempting to atone for deeds with words, but I would not treat you that way again. I was angry. Angry, that isn’t the word.” It was bitten off; a jagged silence followed.</p><p>Laurent gathered himself, and said steadily, “I have your oath that you will see this border skirmish through to its end? Then you have mine: stay with me until this thing is done, and I will take off the cuffs and the collar. I will release you willingly. We can face each other as free men. Whatever is to fall out between us can do so then.”</p><p>Damen stared at him, as if in disbelief. There was something like pain in his expression. The lamplight appeared to wave and flicker.</p><p>“It’s not a trick,” said Laurent.</p><p>“You’d let me go,” said Damen.</p><p><em>Yes. </em>It felt like cruelty—like he was carving away some past self. The child who had wanted nothing more than to kill Damianos was smothered, slowly and painfully, but Laurent could not let himself mourn it.</p><p>Damen said, “And—until then?”</p><p>Laurent’s heart was a twisting thing, a thing with claws and teeth.</p><p>“Until then, you are my slave, and I am your Prince, and that is how it is between us.” <em>That is how it must be. </em>He forced his voice into its usual tone, aloof and nonchalant, adding, “And you don’t need to take watch. You sleep prudently.”</p><p>Damen’s gaze was still searching, but Laurent had shuttered his expression. He waited until Damen stepped away from the tent flap, back towards the flickering light, raising a hand to the laces of his own jacket. Only then did Laurent turn away.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter Fifteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>content warning - very vague references to past abuse</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Laurent woke before dawn, the gray light of morning just beginning to bleed through the canvas of the tent. He woke alone, to an empty tangle of blankets on the pallet where Damen slept. He stared, for a moment, at the twisted linens, the impression where a body had been.</p><p>Outside, the camp was still asleep. Fires burned low, and night scouts returned with their reports as the horizon began to hint at the emergence sunlight. Most of the men were closed, sleeping, in their tents. Soon they would begin to wake and prepare for the ride to Ravenel. Laurent knew what they expected at the end of the journey: approbation, riding in with bound prisoners to the cheers of those stationed at the fort.</p><p>He knew, also, that these expectations would soon be crushed underfoot. Laurent made his way quietly through the neat rows of tents, towards the trees creating a border between his own camp and that of the Vaskian women. As he walked, he ran through the Regent’s possible moves and what he might do to counter them.</p><p>Laurent’s initial plan, the one that had relied on speed, was to trap the raiders and bring them back without delay, riding hard to Ravenel to arrive before his uncle’s messenger—or, failing that, to arrive at the same time. An earlier arrival would have allowed some room for careful revelations, for nudging hints that led Lord Touars to see the Regent’s hand behind the attack at Tarasis. Lord Touars would be a difficult man to sway from war, but he was not entirely unreasonable; if Laurent had been able to dump the evidence at his feet, the man could hardly ignore it.</p><p>But it was too late for that, now. Unless Laurent got very, very lucky, the Regent’s messenger would have already arrived at Ravenel. The first order of business for his uncle, then, would be to ensure that any evidence Laurent might return with was rendered useless. He would have to make sure that any prisoners brought back would be disregarded by the border lords.</p><p>Probably, the messenger would shift the blame for the attack somehow to Laurent himself. It would be the only way to cast sufficient doubt on any tangible evidence the Prince presented upon his return. His prisoners, hard-won, would likely be rendered useless; yet if he had not ridden to find them, he would have been left with no evidence to argue against war with Akielos—he was backed into a corner either way.</p><p>Laurent pondered this as he exchanged a few words with the guards at the edge of the Vaskian camp. Yes—he would almost certainly be blamed for the attack at Tarasis the moment he rode back to Ravenel. He turned this fact over in his mind, wondering how his uncle would accomplish the baseless accusation. The border lords trusted the Regent more than they trusted the Prince, but that would not be enough on its own—not if Laurent brought with him ten men who could testify that they had been paid by the Regent to attack Akielos. There would have to be some other witness—one of his own men, perhaps. But he had instructed Jord to keep careful watch, and to inform him at once if anyone slipped away. All his men were still accounted for; if there was a spy, he remained, for now, in Laurent’s control.</p><p>Still, it did not much matter how the accusation was accomplished. Laurent must prepare, always, for the worst possible outcome. He would operate under the assumption, then, that by the time he returned to Ravenel Lord Touars would already be prepared to stand against him—to arrest him, possibly. He would be ready for a fight—or at least, for a surrender. Laurent’s small company could not be expected to stand against the entire contingent of the fort.</p><p>Laurent consulted with Halvik’s scouts. They brought him the news he had been waiting to hear—news of an army, forces marching through the hills. Laurent thought of the sweet summer air on a balcony, of quietly murmured words and heated exchanges. He released a breath of relief as he surveyed the women’s prisoners—fourteen, now.</p><p>Lord Touars would expect a surrender. He would expect the coward-prince, the shirker, the lazy, petulant boy to crumble when faced with the gravity of his actions. Laurent set his jaw as he talked with two of Halvik’s riders, reviewing what they had seen. If it was a fight his uncle wanted, then Laurent would fight. And he would win.</p><p>He was still speaking with the riders when he saw Damen, prodded towards him at spearpoint, looking slightly dazed. Laurent concluded his business and approached, nodding at the woman holding the spear as he did. She smiled impishly and disappeared.</p><p>Laurent said, “I’m afraid you don’t have time.” He arched his brows, allowing the barest hint of dry humor to creep into his voice. Lazar had already wandered over, earlier, swallowing hard as his eyes darted towards the women.</p><p>Damen said, “Thank you, but I came because I heard the horses.”</p><p>Laurent said, “Lazar said he came because he took a wrong turning.”</p><p>There was a pause, in which a small, defensive frown crossed Damen’s face. Eventually, matching Laurent’s tone, “I see. You prefer privacy?”</p><p>“I couldn’t if I wanted to. A batch of blond Vaskians really would get me disinherited. I’ve never,” he added, “with a woman.”</p><p>“It’s very pleasurable.” Damen's voice was mild.</p><p>“You prefer it.”</p><p>“For the most part.”</p><p>“Auguste preferred women. He told me I would grow into it. I told him that he could get heirs and I would read books. I was…nine? Ten? I thought I was already grown up. The hazards of overconfidence.”</p><p>Damen opened his mouth to reply, but then stopped. He gave Laurent a scrutinizing look, which set his nerves, already stretched thin, on edge.</p><p>Damen said, “You can rest easy. You are ready to face Lord Touars.”</p><p>Laurent stopped. The light was dark blue now rather than pitch, and growing lighter. He was glad, for a moment, that his face was turned away from Damen’s, because the words hit some soft piece of himself that he had left unguarded. He wanted them so badly to be true.</p><p>Damen spoke, carefully, as if he had spent some time considering how to say the words. “I don’t understand how your uncle has you backed this far into a corner. You can outplay him. I’ve seen you do it.”</p><p>The air caught in Laurent’s chest. He thought of the thirteen-year-old boy that felt, sometimes, like a stranger: that stupid, helpless creature that had been terrified, more than anything else, of being left alone.</p><p>Laurent said, “Maybe it seems that I can outplay him now. But when this game began I was…younger.” The word was bitten off, bitter.</p><p>They reached the camp. The first calls came from the tent lines. The troop, in the gray light, began waking.</p><p>Laurent struggled, for a moment, to close the door that Damen’s words had opened in his mind. He remembered his uncle’s voice, at the service where they had buried Auguste’s body: <em>of course, no one could ever live up to your brother. </em>He remembered the way those words had twisted themselves around his spine, the dark seed they had planted, the truth that had grown with him, like a weed wrapped around the trunk of a sapling.</p><p>His uncle’s voice, disappointed: <em>Ah, Laurent. Your brother was so good at this. It is such a shame…</em>His own voice, pathetic, unbroken, promising that he could be good if he was given the chance—his uncle’s hand against his hair, <em>can you? Can you be good, Laurent?</em> The pieces, set in place before he had ever realized, agreeing to play a game before he understood any of the rules.</p><p>The tents came down, the men swung up into their saddles. Laurent rode, leading his men, aware of all the ways that he was not his brother. The difference of his slighter form, the cold distance where his brother had been warm, the way he struggled to fill a role that had come so naturally to Auguste. Laurent clawed at power, trying desperately to fit his brother’s crown to his head. Auguste had only to breathe, and men would follow.</p><p>He thought of his brother, riding out to the front lines at Marlas. Auguste had smiled at Laurent before he left, not a trace of fear in his features. <em>I would never leave you alone. </em>The only time his brother had ever lied to him, and it was on the field that day. The only false words Auguste had ever spoken, and it was the only time it had truly mattered.</p><p>***</p><p>The field was called Hellay, and Laurent knew it as a half-inch of familiar map, studied in lamplight across from a bent head of dark curls. Discussing the quality of the ground here the previous night, Damen had said, “It has not been a harsh summer. It will be grass fields, gentle for riders if we need to depart from the road.” It turned out to be true. The grass was thick and soft on either side of them. Hills rolled out before them, flowing one into another, and there were hills also to the east.</p><p>The sun climbed the sky. They had ridden from a pre-dawn departure, but by the time they reached Hellay there was plenty of light to differentiate rise from flat, grass from sky—sky from what lay under it.</p><p>The sun was shining down on them when the crest of the southern hill detached itself: a moving line that thickened and began to glint with silver and red.</p><p>Damen, riding at the head of the column, reined in and to one side, and Laurent beside him did the same, his eyes never leaving the southern hill. The line was no longer a line, it was shapes, recognizable shapes, and Jord was calling for a troop-wide halt.</p><p>Red. Red, the color of the Regency, scrawled over with the iconography of the border forts, growing, fluttering. These were the banners of Ravenel. Not only the banners, but men and riders, flowing over the hilltop like wine from an over-full cup, staining and darkening its slopes, and spreading.</p><p>By now, columns were visible. It was possible to roughly estimate numbers, five or six hundred riders, two lots of hundred-and-fifty-man infantry columns. Judging from what Damen had reported on the lodgings at the fort, this was in fact Ravenel’s full contingent of horse, and a lesser but substantial portion of its infantry. Next to him, Damen’s horse moved skittishly.</p><p>In the next moment, it seemed, the slopes to their right also grew figures, much closer—close enough to recognize the shape and livery of the men. It was the detachment that Touars had sent to Breteau, who had, a day ago, departed. Not gone, but here, waiting. Add another two hundred to the number.</p><p>Laurent could sense the nervous tension of the men behind him, surrounded by colors that half of them down to their bones distrusted, and outnumbered ten to one.</p><p>Ravenel’s forces on the hill began to split into a widening v-shape.</p><p>“They’re moving to flank us. Have they mistaken us for an enemy troop?” said Jord, confused.</p><p>“No,” said Laurent.</p><p>It was exactly what he had expected. Still, his emotions sharpened to a hard point in his chest.</p><p>“There is still a path open to us, to the north,” said Damen, who understood better what was happening.</p><p>“No,” said Laurent.</p><p>A parcel of men detached itself from Ravenel’s main column, and began making right for them.</p><p>“You two,” said Laurent, and dug his heels into his horse.</p><p>Damen and Jord followed, and they rode out over the long fields of grass, to meet Lord Touars and his men.</p><p>Laurent could feel the wrongness of it. The sense of disconcert, approaching his own people as though they were enemies. It happened sometimes between two forces that there was some parley between messengers, or meeting between principals, for final discussion of conditions or posturing before a fight. Galloping across the field, Laurent’s anger was a steady-burning flame. His uncle had brought war to their country, despite all Laurent's efforts to stop it.</p><p>Laurent reined in. The party was led by Lord Touars, beside him Councillor Guion, and Enguerran, the Captain. Behind them were twelve mounted soldiers.</p><p>“Lord Touars,” said Laurent.</p><p>There was no preamble. “You have seen our forces. You will come with us.”</p><p>Laurent said, mildly, “I take it that since our last meeting, you have received word from my uncle.”</p><p>Lord Touars said nothing, as impassive as the cloaked, armored riders behind him. He was lost, entirely, then, to the Regent. Laurent found himself forced to break the silence and speak, asking calmly, “Come with you to what purpose?”</p><p>Lord Touars’ scarred face was cold with contempt. “We know you have paid bribes to Vaskian raiders. We know you are in thrall to the Akielon, and that you have conspired with Vask to weaken your country with raids and border attacks. The good village of Breteau fell to one such raid. At Ravenel, you will be tried and executed for treason.”</p><p>“Treason,” said Laurent.</p><p>It was an effort to remain cool and collected, with the rage gnashing its teeth in his chest. The claims were so obviously ridiculous—<em>why, </em>what possible reason, could he have to organize attacks against his own country, his own throne? The fact that these men thought low enough of him to believe it was a punch to the gut. They truly thought he was selfish, juvenile, full of malice and spite, unfit for the throne. His own people hated him enough to want him dead.</p><p>“Can you deny that you have under your protection the men responsible for the attacks, and that you have coached them in an attempt to throw blame onto your uncle?”</p><p>It was almost enough to make Laurent laugh. Of course—<em>of course </em>it would be his word against his uncle’s. He had already realized, had already understood, that the prisoners would likely be worthless. He realized that it was entirely possible that the men had been coached by the Regent; perhaps it was for the best that Laurent had not attempted to use them as evidence.</p><p>“I can deny anything I like,” said Laurent, “in the absence of proof.”</p><p>“He has proof. He has my testimony. I saw everything.” A rider pushed out intrusively from behind the others, shoving back the hood of his cloak as he spoke. He looked different in an aristocrat’s armor, with his dark curls primped and brushed, but the pretty mouth was familiar, like the antagonistic voice and the bellicose look in his eyes.</p><p>It was Aimeric.</p><p>Laurent’s heart turned to stone. A hundred small details unfolded, delicately, like the petals of a flower, in his mind. His view of Aimeric shifted, as if the man was coming for the first time into focus. Laurent had written off his eagerness, his sudden urge to join the Prince’s guard, as a desperate ploy for attention from an absent father. He had looked at Aimeric as if looking into a mirror, seeing a young man working himself to the bone to prove his worth. Nausea twisted in his gut as he realized, suddenly, exactly what he had in common with Aimeric—as he realized that it was not any of the things he had thought, during the whole long journey, that they shared, but rather a single thread that bound them both to the Regent.</p><p>There was not time for the emotion that threatened to spill over. There was not time to process the look of horror and understanding on Damen’s face. Laurent wrenched his horse’s head around, planting his mount in front of Jord’s, and saying, “Go back to the troop. Now.”</p><p>Jord’s skin was blanched, as though he had just suffered a blow from a sword. Aimeric watched with his chin up, but gave Jord no particular attention. Jord’s face was stripped raw with betrayal and stricken guilt as he dragged his gaze from Aimeric and met Laurent’s hard, unrelenting eyes.</p><p>Guilt—a breach of faith that cut to the heart of their troop. How long had Aimeric been missing, and how long, out of misplaced loyalty, had Jord been covering up for him?</p><p>Laurent had trusted Jord, for five years, with his life. He had thought Jord a good Captain, a man whose loyalty would be always first to his Prince. He could see now that he had been wrong, and the anger that he felt at that realization was something permeating and heavy. Jord made no excuses, and demanded none from Aimeric, but did as he was ordered in white-faced silence.</p><p>And then Laurent was alone, with only his slave beside him. He was aware of every sword edge, every arrow tip, every soldier arrayed on the hill; they were nothing, compared to the fanged beast in his chest. He remained calm, eyes cold as ice when he turned them to Aimeric.</p><p>Laurent said, “You have me as an enemy for that. You are not going to enjoy the experience.”</p><p>Aimeric said, “You go to bed with Akielons. You let them fuck you.”</p><p>“Like you let Jord fuck you?” said Laurent. “Except that you really let him fuck you. Did your father tell you to do that, or was it your own inspired addition?”</p><p>“I don’t betray my family. I’m not like you,” said Aimeric. “You hate your uncle. You had unnatural feelings for your brother.”</p><p>“At thirteen?” Laurent stared at Aimeric, frigid. It was as if he could see all the strings, connecting the boy to the Regent; the words he spoke, the rumors he repeated. “Apparently, I was even more precocious than you.”</p><p>Aimeric was not as good at containing his fury—it twisted his features, and Laurent could see that everything he suspected was correct. “You thought you were getting away with everything. I wanted to laugh in your face. I would have, if it hadn’t turned my stomach to serve under you.”</p><p>Lord Touars said, “You will come with us willingly, or you will come after we have subjugated your men. You have a choice.”</p><p>Laurent fell silent. <em>A choice—</em>it was an insult. He gazed at the arrayed troops, the contingent of horses flanking him on two sides, and the full complement of infantry, against which his own small band stood, their numbers never meant for waged battle. He ran a series of brief calculations in his head.</p><p>A trial pitting his word against Aimeric’s would, of course, be a mockery, for among these men Laurent’s word was worth little more than the dirt under their feet. He was in the hands of his uncle’s faction. In Arles, it would be worse, the Regent himself muddying Laurent’s reputation. Coward. No accomplishments. Unfit for the throne. <em>No one could ever live up to your brother.</em></p><p>His men could fight. They had proved that, on their ride south. They could stand firm, and they could hold a line. Laurent only needed a bit more time, a few minutes more, an awaited rendezvous. This was a battle he had come prepared to fight. He thought of long nights spent over maps, reviewing battle tactics, fine-tuning drills. He thought of hushed conversations in palaces, and letters sent under cover of night.</p><p>“If I submit to your soldiers, and give myself up to my uncle’s justice,” said Laurent, studying the position of the sun in the sky, “what happens to my men?”</p><p>“Your crimes are not theirs. Having committed no wrongs except loyalty, they will be given their freedom and their lives. They will be disbanded, and the women will be escorted to the Vaskian border. The slave will be executed, of course.”</p><p>“Of course,” said Laurent.</p><p>Councillor Guion spoke. “Your uncle would never say this to you,” he said, reining in beside his son Aimeric. “So I will. Out of loyalty to your father and your brother, your uncle has treated you with leniency you never deserved. You have repaid him with scorn and contempt, with negligence in your duties, and with wanton disregard for the shame you bring to your family. That your selfish nature has led you to treason does not surprise me, but how could you betray your uncle’s trust, after the kindness that he has lavished on you?”</p><p>“Uncle’s immoderate kindness,” said Laurent. Guion would know all about it, of course—Laurent wondered if he had been the one to guide the Regent to Aimeric’s door. He realized, suddenly, what sort of machinations had been behind the Councillor’s rise in power. He thought of his uncle’s ringed hand, settling on Nicaise’s head—pictured Aimeric’s curls instead. He felt the ghost of that weight against his own scalp. Laurent’s voice was laced with venom as he said, “I promise you, it was easy.”</p><p>Guion said, “You show no remorse at all.”</p><p>“Speaking of negligence,” said Laurent.</p><p>He lifted his hand. A long way behind him, two Vaskian women detached themselves from his troop and began to ride forward. Enguerran made a movement of concern, but Touars motioned him back—two women would hardly make a difference here one way or the other. At the halfway mark of their approach, you could see that one of the women’s saddles was lumped, and then you could see what it was lumped with.</p><p>“I have something of yours. I’d chide you on your carelessness, but I’ve just had a lesson in the ways that the detritus of a troop can slip from one camp to another.”</p><p>To the woman, in Vaskian, he said, “Drop him here.” She dumped the bundle from her horse onto the dirt, as one shaking unwanted contents from a pack.</p><p>It was a man, brown-haired and lashed at the wrists and ankles like a boar to a pole after a hunt. His face was caked in dirt, except near the temples, where his hair was clumped with dried blood.</p><p>He wasn’t a clansmen.</p><p>It had been good luck, in the early pre-dawn hours, that the Vaskian scouts, riding to seek Laurent’s allies, had found also his enemies. He saw some understanding settle on Damen’s face, as he turned his gaze sharply to Laurent.</p><p>“If you think,” said Guion, “that a fumbling final play with a hostage will stop or slow us from delivering to you the justice that you deserve, you are mistaken.”</p><p>Enguerran was saying, “It’s one of our scouts.”</p><p>“It’s four of your scouts,” Laurent corrected him.</p><p>One of the soldiers leapt down from his horse and went down on one armored knee beside the prisoner, as Touars, frowning at Enguerran, said, “The reports are delayed?”</p><p>“From the east. It’s not unusual, when the terrain is this broad,” said Enguerran.</p><p>The soldier sliced open the bindings on the prisoner’s hands and feet, and as he pulled at the gag, the prisoner lurched into a sitting position with the stupefied movements of a man fresh out of harsh bindings.</p><p>Thick-tongued, “My lord—a force of men to the east, riding to intercept you at Hellay—”</p><p>“This is Hellay,” said Councillor Guion, with sharp impatience, as Captain Enguerran looked at Laurent with a different expression.</p><p>“What force?” Aimeric’s sudden voice was thin and edged.</p><p>Laurent had the satisfaction of witnessing fear, poorly repressed, break over both Aimeric’s features and those of his father.</p><p>Guion said, blustering, “Your rabble clan of alliances, or Akielon mercenaries, no doubt.”</p><p>“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” said Laurent. Next to him, Damen had gone very still.</p><p>Below, the scout was still speaking frantically, “—carrying the Prince’s banners alongside the yellow of Patras—”</p><p>An ear-splitting note from the horn of one of the Vaskian women drew a returning sound, like an echo, a distant, mournful note that rang out once and then again, and again, from the east. And cresting the sprawling eastern hill, the banners appeared, along with all the glinting weapons and livery of an army.</p><p>Alone of all the men Laurent did not lift his eyes to the hilltop, but kept them trained on Lord Touars.</p><p>“I have a choice?” said Laurent. Cold satisfaction washed over him as Lord Touars turned his gaze from the east back to Laurent, eyes now wary.</p><p>“Did you think,” said Laurent, “if you threw down a challenge to fight, I would not accept it?”</p><p>The Patran troops filled the eastern horizon, bright under the noonday sun.</p><p>“My scorn and contempt,” said Laurent, “are not in need of your leniency. Lord Touars, you face me in my own kingdom, you inhabit my lands, and you breathe at my pleasure. Make your own choice.”</p><p>“Attack.” Aimeric was looking from Touars to his father; his knuckles, clutching the reins, were white. “Attack him. Now, before those other men arrive, you don’t know him, he has a way of—twisting out of things—”</p><p>“Your Highness,” said Lord Touars. “I have received my orders from your uncle. They carry the full authority of the Regency.”</p><p>Laurent said, “The Regency exists to safeguard my future. My uncle’s authority over you is dependent on my subsequent authority over him. Without that, your duty is to break from him.”</p><p>Lord Touars said, “I need time to consider, and to speak again with my advisors. An hour.”</p><p>“Go,” said Laurent.</p><p>An order from Lord Touars, and the greeting party streamed back over the filed towards their own ranks.</p><p>Laurent whirled his horse to face Damen.</p><p>“I need you to captain the men. Take the command from Jord. It’s yours. It should have been you,” said Laurent, “from the start.” His voice grew hard as he spoke of Touars: “He is going to fight.”</p><p>“He was wavering,” said Damen.</p><p>“He was wavering. Guion will hold him firm. Guion has hitched his cart to my uncle’s train, and he knows that any decision that ends with me on the throne ends with his head on the block. He will not allow Touars to back down from this fight,” said Laurent. “I have spent a month playing battle games with you over a map. Your strategy in the field is better than mine. Is it better than that of the border lords of my country? Advise me, Captain.”</p><p>He watched as Damen looked again at the hills; for a moment, between two armies, they were alone.</p><p>Laurent could see, behind Damen’s eyes, the quick working of a mind primed for battle. He saw the assessment of troops, position, and terrain, saw the thoughts flashing in Damen's gaze. There was the small, familiar furrow between brows that was created whenever was thinking hard. Laurent had seen it, many times, as Damen sat across from him, bent over maps, face flickering with the shadows of lamps.</p><p>“I can win you this battle. But if you want Ravenel…” Damen began to speak, and paused. He looked, for a moment, as if he was playing out some internal struggle. When he continued, he said, “If you want to take Ravenel, you need to cut them off from the fort, no one in or out, no messengers, no riders, and a swift, clean victory without the disintegration of a rout. Once Ravenel gets word of what’s happened here, the defenses go up. You will need to use some of the Patrans to create a perimeter, depleting the main force, then break the Veretian lines, ideally those closest to Touars himself. It will be harder.”</p><p>“You have an hour,” said Laurent.</p><p>“This would have been easier,” said Damen, “if you had told me earlier what to expect. In the mountains. At the Vaskian camp.”</p><p>“I didn’t know who it was,” said Laurent. It was simple, the unadorned truth. Something dark passed over Damen’s face.</p><p>Laurent said, “You were right about him. He spent the first week here starting fights, and when that didn’t work, he got in bed with my Captain.” He kept his voice flat, inflectionless. “What was it, do you think, that Orlant found out, that got him skewered on Aimeric’s sword?”</p><p>There was a twist in Damen’s features—something that looked like pity. Laurent did not want to see it. He put his heels to his horse, and galloped back to the troop.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter Sixteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The mood was tense when they returned. The men were on edge, surrounded by the Regent’s banners. An hour was no time at all the make preparations. No one liked it. They released the carts, the servants, the extra horses. They armed and took up shields. The Vaskian women, whose allegiance was tentative, retreated with the carts—except two, who stayed to fight on the understanding that they would receive the horses of any men they killed.</p><p>“The Regency,” said Laurent, addressing the troop, “thought to take us outnumbered. It expected us to roll over without a fight.”</p><p>Damen said: “We will not let them cow us, subdue us or force us down. Ride hard. Don’t stop to fight the front line. We are going to smash them open. We are here to fight for our Prince!”</p><p>The cry rang out, <em>For the Prince! </em>The men gripped their swords, slammed their visors down, and the sound they made was a roar.</p><p>Laurent watched Damen gallop away, giving the order for the traveling column to re-form. The days of sloppiness and straggling were gone. The men were green and untested, but behind them now was a half-summer of continuous training together.</p><p>Laurent turned away, casting his gaze instead over Lord Touars' troop. The cry of the men—<em>for the prince!</em>—rang in his ears. It was the same cry that Auguste’s men had shouted, before they marched to their deaths at Marlas.</p><p>But this was not Marlas. Laurent gripped the reins of his horse, staring out at the Veretian troops. This was not Marlas because there was no enemy, only countrymen facing each other across the field. It did not matter who won or lost—either way, Veretians would die. Guilt was a difficult weight on his back. If he had surrendered, if he had not summoned Patran troops, then all of the men on this field could go on living. Instead, he was acutely aware that he was placing his own life above the lives of his men, above the lives of every man on this field. His uncle had given him no other choice.</p><p>Surveying their position, it was clear that neither side had the numerical advantage. What would matter, then, was the quality of their troops, and their ability to follow orders. Laurent’s own company was newest to the discipline of battle; in this, Lord Touars had the advantage. Laurent could only hope that his men would be able to hold a line when facing down veteran soldiers.</p><p>Still, despite their experience, Touars’ men would likely hesitate when facing the Prince himself. These were men who had fought under Auguste’s blue banners, the starburst of the crown. The Regent’s rumors had infected the minds of the border lords, but they had not quite reached the commons. This, then, was an advantage for Laurent.</p><p>He had, also, the tactical advantage. Touars’ front faced Laurent, but he was flanked by the Patrans: Touars’ formation advancing would have to swing around in order to make a second front facing in the Patran direction, or be quickly overrun.</p><p>But Touars’ men were a veteran force drilled in large-scale maneuvers; splitting on the field in order to fight on two fronts would be something they well knew how to do.</p><p>Laurent’s own men were not capable of such complex fieldwork. They would need to keep things simple, to focus on breaking Touars’ lines. Laurent thought about what Damen had said—<em>a clean victory. </em>If he wanted to prevent bloodshed, he would need to cut off the head of his uncle’s beast. These soldiers were loyal to Lord Touars—if he died, they would likely lay down their arms.</p><p>The goal, then, was not to amass casualties. Laurent had no desire to kill his way through Veretian troops, devouring their numbers until they could not stand. Instead, the best men in the company would need to strike like a viper, aiming for the throat, quickly and efficiently. Touars must die, and Guion—Enguerran could be left alive, but he must be taken prisoner. Laurent’s stomach twisted as he thought of Aimeric, who was also a liability, and could not be allowed to leave the field.</p><p>He drew his horse alongside Damen’s; around them, the scent of greenery and crushed grass that would soon transform into something else. Laurent was silent for a long moment before he spoke, turning over his plan in his mind.</p><p>“Touars’ men will be less unified than they appear. Whatever rumors my uncle has spread about me, the starburst banner means something here on the border.”</p><p>He thought of the last great battle fought at the border—of Auguste, golden and draped in gold, eyes as blue as his banners. Auguste had ridden out to kill Akielons, and yet Laurent found himself now on a field full of Veretian men, where the only person he could trust was a man from Akielos. He tried not to let this truth sharpen itself in his mind, lest it become too painful.</p><p>“I know,” said Laurent, “that a Captain’s real work is done before the battle. And you have been my Captain, in the long hours with me planning drills, shaping the men. It was under your instruction that we kept the drills simple, and learned how to hold and to break.”</p><p>“Frills are for parades. An unyielding foundation wins battles.”</p><p>“It would not have been my strategy.”</p><p>“I know. You overcomplicate things.”</p><p>Laurent closed his eyes briefly. “I have an order for you,” he said.</p><p>Across the long fields of Hellay the lines of Touars’ men stood immaculately arrayed against them.</p><p>Laurent spoke clearly. “‘A clean victory without the disintegration of a rout.’ What you meant is that this has to be done quickly, and that I cannot afford to lose half my men. So this is my order. When we are inside their lines, you and I will hunt out the leaders of this fight. I will take Guion, and if you get to him before I do,” said Laurent, “kill Lord Touars.”</p><p>“What?” said Damen.</p><p>Each word was precise. “That is how Akielons win wars, isn’t it? Why fight the whole army, when you can just cut off the head?”</p><p>After a long moment, Damen said, “You won’t have to hunt them out. They’ll be coming for you, too.”</p><p>“Then we’ll have a swift victory. I meant what I said. If we sleep tonight inside the walls of Ravenel, in the morning, I will take off the collar from around your neck. This is the battle you came here to fight.”</p><p>***</p><p>They didn’t have an hour. They had barely half of that. And no warning, Touars’ hope being to reverse their advantage of position with surprise.</p><p>But Laurent was of course harder to surprise than most men realized, and Damen, who had long viewed Vere as a pit of untrustworthy vipers, did not even bat an eye.</p><p>The first sweep across the field was smooth and geometric. Trumpets blared, and the first large-scale movements began: Touars, attempting to swing, was confronted by Laurent’s cavalry, riding straight for him. He heard Damen call the order: hold, even and steady. Formation was all: their own lines must not disunite in the zeal of the escalating charge. Laurent’s men held their horses to a canter, hard-reined, though they tossed their heads and wanted to break to a gallop, the thunder of hooves in their ears and rising, their blood up, the charge catching like a spark that makes a racing fire. Hold, hold.</p><p>The shock of collision was like the smashing of boulders in a landslide. Laurent felt the battering shudder, the sudden shift in scale as the panorama of the charge was abruptly replaced by the slam of muscle against metal, of horse and man impacting at speed. Nothing could be heard over the crashing, the roars of the men, both sides warping and threatening to rupture, regular lines and upright banners replaced by a heaving, struggling mass. Horses slipped, then regained their footing; others fell, slashed or speared through.</p><p>The last time Laurent had seen a battlefield, he had been thirteen. He had never ridden out with the front lines, but had been always further back, where he witnessed the great crash of death before it reached him. Now, he maintained an iron grip over his faculties as the familiar screams of horses and men began. <em>Auguste would not falter. Auguste would feel no fear</em>.</p><p>He had been right about the common soldiers. They fell back, a bit, hesitating. It made Laurent’s heart twist painfully in his chest, for the hesitation was all he needed to strike them down, steel stained red as the Regent’s banners.</p><p>Men fell around him, Veretian soldiers. Some wore his own blue livery, others red. It mattered not either way. All the bodies were soon covered in the churned grass and earth, trampled under the hooves of horses.</p><p>Laurent kept his mind focused on the battle, not the bodies. He could feel Touars’ force beginning to give way, feel his lines buckling, the charge near to gaining ascendency, so that living men must get out of the way or find death. At the hands of their Prince, they found death.</p><p>He heard Touars’ men give the call to re-group, heard Damen’s echoed call to break the lines and re-form.</p><p>A commander, shouting, could expect to be heard by, at best, the men next to him, but the call was echoed in voices, then in horn blasts, and the men, who had practiced this maneuver outside Nesson over and over, re-formed perfectly, with the majority of their number intact.</p><p>Just in time for Touars’ still struggling force around them to be rocked sideways by the impact of a second Patran charge.</p><p>The first rupture, a sharp burst of chaos. He was aware of Damen alongside him—he could not be unaware. The man’s sword was a living thing, an extension of his body, cutting like water through the enemy troop. It was breathtaking.</p><p>Laurent felt his horse stagger, bleeding from a long cut on its shoulder, while the horse in front of it went down. He closed his thighs, changed his seat, and took his horse over the thrashing obstacle, landing on the other side with his sword drawn, and clearing ground for himself with two exact slices, mount wheeling. He had always been good at riding.</p><p>As he wheeled, the men around him fell back a little. He knew what they saw: their Prince, the golden figurehead who was always at the front of processionals. It was not quite loyalty—not enough to stop their blades entirely. But there was a reluctance, among the common soldiers, to strike a blow directly against him.</p><p>But only among the common soldiers. Laurent spotted Guion, staring in fury from under a helm. The moment the battle began to shift in their favor, Guion charged towards him, killing Laurent his only imperative.</p><p>Laurent turned to meet him. The rage that had been coolly repressed clawed once more at his chest. He thought of Aimeric; he thought of Guion’s words. <em>How could you betray your uncle’s trust, after the kindness that he has lavished on you?</em> For the first time during the battle, Laurent felt the unadulterated desire to kill coursing through his veins.</p><p>But it was not Guion who reached him first. It was Enguerran. He engaged Laurent, eyes hard, set on his course of action. He expected a swift victory, expected the prince’s blood on his hands. From the line of his jaw, Laurent could see that the man was not entirely comfortable with the idea. Yet he had been given orders, and he was following them; if nothing else, his loyalty to his master was admirable.</p><p>Laurent, however, had no plans of dying, and was thus kindly prepared to remove from Enguerran the burden of dirtying his hands with royal blood. The captain’s face split open in shock as they fought—he stared at Laurent as though seeing him for the first time as their swords met. Laurent drove him back, ruthlessly, outmaneuvering him with little effort.</p><p>After the first engagement, Enguerran drew back for a moment. He was breathing hard.</p><p>“You can fight,” he said, roughly.</p><p>“Can I?”</p><p>Laurent raised his blade, and engaged again. He was aware of the fighting surrounding them; Enguerran had been part of a knot of men that included Lord Touars as well as Guion. Pairs of men around them parried and slashed. The scent of blood was thick in the air.</p><p>At the end of the second engagement, Enguerran was forced to retreat. He was barely able to remain on his horse, with the deep wound across his belly. His sword lay on the ground, too far away to retrieve it.</p><p>He looked at Laurent with his jaw set, hard expectation in his eyes. But Laurent did not strike the killing blow. He was aware of Guion, who had just dispatched his opponent, staring at them.</p><p>He turned to face Guion. The man’s eyes darted between the open wound across Enguerran’s stomach and the bloodied sword gripped in Laurent’s hand. Laurent did not try to hide the cold fury he felt as he urged his horse towards Guion. His intention was unmistakable: Guion would not win this battle.</p><p>Guion, seeing this, put his heels to his horse. Laurent swore. He knew better than to trust the Councillor—still, he had not expected such an open display of cowardice. Rage drove him to follow, abandoning Enguerran and pursuing Guion. The desire to kill was a steady beat that matched his heart.</p><p>Guion was a skilled rider. Laurent had seen him hunt, once or twice; he sat well, and knew how to control a mount even in the heart of battle. Had the terrain been flat and open, he might have been able to escape, utilizing his head-start.</p><p>The terrain was not flat and open. It was crowded with bodies, both of horses and men, surrounding them and underfoot. Guion, attempting to flee, found he must maneuver around these obstacles, which slowed him greatly. Looking back at his pursuer, he could see what was becoming painfully clear: Laurent was going to catch up.</p><p>And then, suddenly, a blade in his path. Laurent pulled hard at the reins, turning his horse and circling around to confront the interruption. Where the other soldiers had fallen back, this one drew forward, placing himself belligerently in Laurent’s path.</p><p>Aimeric.</p><p>Laurent eyed him. The man was covered in sweat, curls plastered to his forehead. His pretty mouth was a hard, determined line. There was the slightest tremor in his shoulders, but he held his sword steady. Laurent thought of the hours spent in drills, the way Aimeric had pushed himself always to the brink of exhaustion. Something twisted in his gut.</p><p>“Your father is running away.” Laurent said.</p><p>Aimeric’s response was to swing his sword, sending six pounds of heavy steel with killing speed at Laurent’s neck. Laurent parried. The move was easy to predict.</p><p>“You cannot beat me in a fight.” He said. Aimeric had seen his duel with Govart. Aimeric had seen him leading the drills, day after day.</p><p>The sword came up again; Laurent knocked it away.</p><p>“You disgust me,” Aimeric spat. His face was white.</p><p>“I think you’ll find that the sentiment is mutual.”</p><p>Around them, Touars’ men were falling. The final moments of battle felt distant, as he stared at the fear lodged deep behind Aimeric’s eyes. Laurent’s men were swarming over Touars’ standard, toppling the banners of Ravenel. It was happening: Ravenel’s surrender spreading out from the point where Laurent had last seen Touars’ engaging Damen. It did not take much stretching of the imagination to guess what had happened.</p><p>He disarmed Aimeric. The edge of his sword sat at the juncture where neck met shoulder. Aimeric’s chest was heaving with breath, as cries of victory went up around them.</p><p>“Are you going to kill me?” He said.</p><p>Guion’s horse was now a speck in the distance. He would never be caught.</p><p>“No,” said Laurent.</p><p>***</p><p>He instructed two of his nearby men to divest Aimeric of his horse, carting him away as a prisoner. He then sent the horse to Damen, who was surrounded on the ground by men in blue livery, slapping him on the back and cheering.</p><p>Once he was back on a horse, Laurent reined in beside him. “Well, Captain,” he said. “Now we merely have to take an impregnable fortress.”</p><p>He allowed himself to feel, for the first time, the heady rush of victory that had overtaken the men. Even among the churned and bloodied battlefield, even with Aimeric’s words ringing in his head, elation was difficult to contain. He had won—truly <em>won </em>in this fight against his uncle. He had predicted each move, had meticulously prepared, had righted his mistakes as they were revealed. It had worked. Victory was his.</p><p>“Those who surrendered are to be well treated. Later, they will be given the opportunity to join me. Set up what measures you see fit for the injured and the dead. Then come to me. I want us ready to ride for Ravenel within the half hour.”</p><p>There was still work to be done. He could not let the heady surge of gratification at his success overrule his common sense. There was a fort to take.</p><p>The cleanup would not be pleasant, he knew. He was all too aware of the bodies strewn across the field. But there would be physicians at Ravenel—they needed only to get inside.</p><p>A siege would be foolish. A battle would be suicide. Their only chance would be to take the fort by surprise—unguarded. The plan began to form itself in Laurent’s mind; he sought out the men in charge of prisoners, to ensure that Enguerran was among those captured. He was; he required some treatment for the wound Laurent had inflicted. But he was alive, for now, at least.</p><p>Once he had seen to the preliminary arrangements, Laurent sought out Jord.</p><p>The man was covered in the sweat and grime of battle. There was blood on his armor, as there was blood on everyone’s armor. He had been among those who had ridden into the knot of Touars’ best men, and had returned alive.</p><p>Now, facing him, Laurent did not shy away from the betrayal. He let the anger pass over him, a wave of resentment. He allowed it to ebb, like a tide, and then surge once more. Guilt was an open wound across Jord’s weary face, but there was something behind it, also—some internal struggle that Laurent could not understand, hardening his eyes.</p><p>“How long?” Laurent said. His voice was flat, wiped clean of all emotion. Jord did not need to ask what he meant.</p><p>“Since we arrived at Breteau.” He said. His voice was hoarse; ragged in his throat.</p><p>Four days. Four days Jord had known that Aimeric was missing, and had kept the secret. It was a direct breach of not only protocol but of Laurent’s specific orders that he be informed if there was any man unaccounted for.</p><p>There was no use in the anger he felt, now. The battle had been won. Aimeric’s betrayal had not been enough to stop the victory. But Laurent could not prevent himself from wondering how things might have been different—how he might have prepared, what other contingencies he may have set in place if he had known that Aimeric was a spy.</p><p>It was an unproductive line of thinking; he halted it. There was work to do yet, and he could not allow himself to be distracted by Aimeric. Or by Jord.</p><p>“The badge.” Laurent said.</p><p>He held out his hand. Jord’s face twisted with an expression that was not only guilt, that went past regret—there was, again, the same hint of struggle, laced almost with anger. But he said nothing, only placed the pin in Laurent’s open palm.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter Seventeen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“It’s dishonorable,” Damen said. He was frowning, features soured with distaste.</p><p>“Dishonorable?”</p><p>“It’s a deception—it’s dishonest. The traditional forms of warfare exist because they give your opponent a fair chance.”</p><p>Laurent’s voice was sharp. “This gives us a fair chance.”</p><p>His tone made it clear that it was the end of the conversation. Damen’s frown deepened, but he set his jaw, and when Laurent ordered him to fetch Enguerran he left without further protest.</p><p><em>Dishonorable. </em>Laurent tamped down on the defensive anger rising in his chest. He felt, acutely, this distance between them. To Damen, war was a set of rules and procedures, wrapped up in honor and victory and fair play. Laurent had thought as much, once. But any notions he’d had about war and honor had been gutted on the battlefield at Marlas. There was nothing fair about dying.  </p><p>Other men could concern themselves with honor. Laurent would concern himself with preserving the lives of as many of his men as possible.</p><p>He stopped to exchange a few words with the Vaskian women—determining which horses they would keep, ensuring preparations were made so that they would not be denied their spoils once they left. This done, he made his way to one of the round Patran tents on the edge of the battlefield, where his presence was expected.</p><p>He pulled off his helm as he entered the tent, aware of the tendrils of hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. Damen was standing, still frowning, stormy-eyed, to one side. His armor was painted with the gore of battle. Enguerran was also standing, blood leaking from the wound in his side.</p><p>Laurent said, “Get on your knees.”</p><p>Enguerran fell to his knees in a clank of armor.</p><p>“Your Highness,” he said.</p><p>“You address me as your Prince?” said Laurent.</p><p>His voice was mild, but there was venom behind the words. Enguerran might be an asset—but it would be difficult ever to trust a man so ready to shift his allegiance. And Laurent could see, from the fear lining his face and the hatred burning in his eyes, that the Captain’s true loyalty remained with Lord Touars’ faction.</p><p>Enguerran heard the danger in Laurent’s words. He stayed on his knees, his cape pooling around him; a muscle moved in his jaw, but he didn’t lift his eyes.</p><p>“My loyalty was to Lord Touars. I served him for ten years. And Guion had the authority of his office, and of your uncle.”</p><p>“Guion does not have the authority to remove me from the succession. Nor, it transpires, does he have the means.” Laurent’s eyes passed over Enguerran, his bowed head, his injury, his Veretian armor with its ornate shoulderpiece. “We are riding for Ravenel. You are alive because I want your loyalty. When the scales fall from your eyes about my uncle, I will expect it.”</p><p>Enguerran looked up. His eyes settled not on Laurent, but on Damen. The hatred flared; his mouth became a thin line. The open hostility was palpable, the implication clear: this was a man who would never agree to bring an Akielon into a Veretian fort. Not willingly.</p><p>Laurent said, “I remember. You don’t like him. And, of course, he out-captained you on the field. I imagine you like that even less.”</p><p>“You’ll never get inside Ravenel,” Enguerran said, flatly. “Guion made it through your lines with his retinue. He’s riding for Ravenel right now, to warn them you are coming.”</p><p>“I don’t think he is. I think he’s riding to Fortaine, so he can lick his wounds in private, without my uncle and I forcing him to make any uncomfortable choices.”</p><p>“You’re lying. Why would he withdraw to Fortaine, when he has a chance to defeat you here?”</p><p>“Because I have his son,” said Laurent.</p><p>Enguerran’s eyes flew to Laurent’s face.</p><p>“Yes. Aimeric. Trussed and tied and spewing pretty venom.”</p><p>“I see. So you need me to get inside Ravenel. That is he real reason I am alive. You expect me to betray the people I have served for ten years.”</p><p>“To get inside Ravenel? My dear Enguerran, I’m afraid you are quite mistaken.”</p><p>He moved his gaze, deliberately, over Enguerran, his voice cold.</p><p>“I don’t need you,” said Laurent. “I just need your clothes.”</p><p>***</p><p>That was how they would get into Ravenel: disguised, in his uncle’s colors.</p><p>Laurent ordered Enguerran stripped, his armor to be given to Damen. One Captain substituted for another; the cape swirled around Damen as he stood. Laurent himself would be wearing the armor of one of the bannermen, whose proportions were better suited to his own slight frame.</p><p>Not everyone got armor that fit, but they had rescued Touars’ banners and righted them, and the red cloth and helms were straight, and they could be mistaken for Touars’ troop from a distance of forty-six feet, which was the height of Ravenel’s walls.</p><p>Rochert got a helmet with a feather in it. Lazar got the standard-bearer’s silks and gaudy tunic. As well as his red cape and his armor, Damen got Enguerran’s sword and his helm, which covered the majority of his face, save for a slit across the eyes. Enguerran had the dubious honor of riding with them not (as he might have been) stripped to his undergarments like a plucked chicken, but bound to a horse and dressed in unobtrusive Veretian clothing. Laurent thought this very magnanimous of himself.</p><p>The men had just fought an action, but exhaustion had transformed into the kind of high spirits that came from the heady mix of victory, fatigue and adrenaline. This wayward adventure appealed to them. Or perhaps it was the idea of a new victory, satisfying because it would be of a different kind. First smash the Regent, then pull the wool over his eyes.</p><p>Damen seemed the only one in a sour mood. He frowned at the gauntlets that covered the golden wrist cuffs. He frowned at the cape that billowed when he walked. He frowned at Laurent when the prince donned his own disguise and said, innocently, “I don’t believe red is my color.”</p><p>Eventually, Laurent broke off to oversee some other section of the men, if only to escape Damen’s scowling. He knew that an Akielon would not recognize today’s escapade as a military action; he understood that Damen thought it dishonorable, a coward’s deception. What he did not understand was his own irritation with Damen’s disapproval—he felt some private urge to explain himself, which was ridiculous. He was the Prince, commander of this troop. He needed explain himself to no one, offer no excuses for his actions. Given the choice between honorable bloodshed and bloodless deception, he would always choose the latter. There had been enough blood spilled already at Hellay.</p><p>He ignored Damen’s glowering as they sailed through the first set of gates. At the second set of gates, a soldier on the walls waved a banner from side to side, signaling the portcullis open, and at Damen’s order Lazar waggled their own banner around in answer, while Enguerran jerked (gagged) in the saddle.</p><p>It felt daring, intoxicating—the boyish excitement of the troops was contagious. They had enjoyed the long ride, giddy smiles showing out from under their disguises, energetic laughter echoing through the ranks. As they passed through the second gates, the men just barely had their exhilaration strapped down under straight faces in the long drawn-out space between heartbeats, waiting for the whistle and thunk of crossbows that never came.</p><p>As the heavy latticed iron beetled above their heads, Laurent held his breath, waiting for a disruption, a cry of outrage—but nothing came. His heart pounded with excited tension as they made their way into the fort. The men of Ravenel welcomed them, fooled entirely by the disguise, leaving themselves wide open.</p><p>Despite his reluctance, Damen remained sharply focused as the passed through the gates. Laurent heard him giving orders, sending men to the battlements, to the storehouses, to the spiral staircases that gave access to the towers. They knew the layout of this fort. They knew how to subdue it.</p><p>The main force reached the courtyard. Laurent drove his horse up the steps and crested the dais, abandoning his helmet and turning his head to catch the light of the setting sun. His men took up the central position in the great hall behind him. No doubt now who they were, as blue pennants unfurled, and Touars’ banners were thrown aside. Laurent wheeled on his horse, and its hooves rang on the smooth stone. He was fully exposed, aware of the empty space around him into which any downwards pointing arrows might fly from the battlements.</p><p>There was a moment when any soldier of Ravenel might have cried out, <em>Treachery! Sound the horn!</em></p><p>But by the time that moment came, Laurent’s men were everywhere, and if one of Ravenel’s soldiers reached for a blade or a crossbow, there was a swordtip in place to persuade him to put it down. Blue surrounded red.</p><p>Laurent sat, alone on his horse, facing the fort. Damen called in a ringing voice: “Lord Touars is defeated at Hellay. Ravenel is under the protection of the Crown Prince.”</p><p>***</p><p>It would not be entirely bloodless. Laurent knew that they would likely encounter real fighting in the living quarters, worst from the private ranks of men who had served Touars and his advisors most closely.</p><p>But it was a victory, nonetheless. The men were enjoying it fully, the classic arc of it: the swell of preparation, the cresting of the fight, and the breaking, the heady rush of conquest. Laurent’s heart soared in his chest as he looked out at the fort—<em>his </em>fort—and the elation of the men—<em>his </em>men. He wished, for a moment, that Auguste was there with him. He wondered what his brother would say.</p><p>It was a battle won and a fort taken, a solid base secured, and Laurent was alive, instead of executed for treason against his own crown.</p><p>Below him there was celebration, an outpouring of revelry, which the men deserved. A boy was playing a pipe, and there was the sound of drums, and dancing. Laurent retired to his chambers as they brought out casks of wine, listening to the fading sounds of barrels upended and men cheering.</p><p>Inside the fort, the style was older, reminiscent of Chastillon, the ornate Veretian designs worked in curved iron and dark carved wood, without the overlays of gilt, ivory, mother of pearl. The designs were more restrained, here along the border, with less of the gaudy ornamentation found nearer to the capital. Laurent found that he liked it. The decoration was still beautiful, but with more room to breathe.</p><p>For a moment, he found himself alone in his room, having sent for servants to assist him in removing the heavy armor. He gazed through one of the latticed windows, where the sun was sinking, full-bellied and heavy, in the sky. Orange light broke through the glass, interrupted by the intricate lines of iron so that it broke into a series of shapes that danced playfully across the stone floor.</p><p>Giddy relief threatened to overwhelm him. There was a pure rush of joy as he let himself face what he had accomplished: he had managed to outplay his uncle. He had truly, <em>truly </em>won. He knew it was not the end; after the battle at Hellay, he would face civil war. But he would face it from a near-impregnable fort, with an army at his fingertips. It was more than he had ever thought possible. More than he had ever thought himself capable of accomplishing.</p><p>It was impossible, as the servants arrived and began to remove his armor, tugging at the straps, not to think of Damen. Laurent knew, down to his bones, that what he had accomplished today would never have happened if it weren’t for the Akielon. He would be dead—throat slit in Arles or stabbed in an alley in Nesson, or bleeding out in a creek in the border wilderness.</p><p>He thought of the nights spent tracing lines across maps, of exhilarating chases through countryside, of gentle fingers, tugging at laces. Tomorrow he would remove the gold from around Damen’s throat and wrists of his own volition; he would keep his promise. In Arles, he would never have thought it possible. There were so many things he had never thought possible.</p><p>He would allow himself one night. One night, without consideration for the future and what it might hold; one night to simply enjoy the impossibility of his victory here. Laurent drew his thoughts away from the looming war, from the sticky trap of his uncle’s games, from the thought of Damen, disappearing and transforming across a border. He allowed himself, instead, the simplicity of happiness. He summoned Damen to report.</p><p>The sounds of celebration were muffled into softness by the thick stone walls of Laurent’s inner chambers. When Damen entered, a servant was lifting the last piece of armor from his shoulders. Freed of the weight, he rolled them, turning to face his Captain as he came through the doors.</p><p>When their eyes met, Laurent was faced with an indecipherable expression behind Damen’s gaze. He could see that the elated, victorious mood spread amongst the rest of the men had not permeated the stormy demeanor from their ride to the fort. Yet there was something different—something sad, where before Damen’s eyes had been indignant.</p><p>It mattered not. The jubilant buzz running through Laurent’s veins could not be quelled—he held onto it.</p><p>“How do you like my fort?”  </p><p>“I like it. I wouldn’t mind seeing you with a few more,” said Damen. “To the north.”</p><p>He stepped forward. Laurent could see the attempt to repress whatever somber mood was infecting him—the attempt to match the light humor.</p><p>“If you didn’t fit Enguerran’s shoulderpiece, I was going to suggest you try the panoply off his horse.”</p><p>Finally, a grudging smile. “‘I will take Guion’?” said Damen.</p><p>“Be fair. You won the battle before I could get to him. I thought I’d have half a chance, at least. Are all your conquests that decisive?”</p><p>“Do things always work out as you plan?”</p><p>“This time they did. This time everything did. You know, we just took an impregnable fort.”</p><p>They were gazing at one another. Ravenel, the jewel of the Veretian border: a punishing ground fight at Hellay, and a piece of mad trickery in mismatched clothing. It was like something from a storybook.</p><p>“I know,” Damen said, helplessly.</p><p>“It’s double the men I was anticipating. And ten times the supplies. Shall I be honest with you? I thought I’d be taking a defensive position—”</p><p>“At Acquitart,” said Damen. “You had it supplied for a siege.” His voice was growing closer to its usual tone. “Ravenel’s a little more defensible. Just have your men check under the helms before they open the gates.”</p><p>“All right,” said Laurent. “You see? I’m learning to take your advice.” His lips curved up in an unthinking, unselfconscious smile as he said it.</p><p>Damen blinked, and tore his eyes away. Some of the storm had appeared, again, in his features. He gave his report: the armory was stocked, and more than stocked, meticulous rows of smooth metal and sharpened tips. Most of Touars’ men stationed in the fort had transferred their loyalty.</p><p>The walls were manned, and the ordinances for defense had been laid out. The equipment was readied for use. The men knew their duty, and from storehouses to courtyard to great hall, the fort was prepared.</p><p>At the end of it, he said, “What will you do next?”</p><p>“Bathe,” answered Laurent, in a tone that said he knew perfectly well what Damen had meant, “and change into something that’s not made of metal. You should do the same. I had the servants lay out some clothing for you that befits your new station. Very Veretian, you’ll hate it. I have something else for you as well.”</p><p>He moved to a small table near the wall, where he had placed the badge which earlier he had retrieved from Jord. Damen turned back to him, watching as he picked it up. Laurent looked up in time to see something shutter behind Damen's eyes.</p><p>“I didn’t have time to give this to you before the battle,” said Laurent.</p><p>Damen closed his eyes, opened them. He said, “Jord was your Captain through most of our march to the border.”</p><p>Laurent felt some small piece of understanding fit itself into place. There was guilt, underlying Damen’s voice. They both knew he would be Captain only for this night. Laurent didn’t care. He refused to care, refused to think of how the badge would be left behind tomorrow. He did not know why it felt important to make this point, why it felt so necessary to have this—symbol—of what had occurred between them.</p><p>“And you are my Captain now,” he said, firmly. Drawing near, his gaze shifted to Damen’s neck, where the collar was scarred from a blade; iron had bitten deep into the soft gold. “That looks like it was close.”</p><p>“It was,” Damen said, “close.”</p><p>He swallowed hard, and turned his head to one side. Laurent held the Captain’s badge of office, felt the smooth metal under his finger, ridged slightly where the insignia was raised.</p><p>Damen still wore full armor, unlike Laurent, who stood only in a loose shirt, hair still damp with sweat against his neck. Laurent could see where blood had dried on the metal, turning with time from vivid red to more muted, rusted patches.</p><p>He lifted his hands, deliberately, to Damen’s chest, finding the place where Enguerran’s cape met metal. The pin under Laurent’s fingers pricked fabric, slid, then fit to the clasp.</p><p>The doors to the room opened. Damen turned, as if in surprise.</p><p>A swell of people were spilling into the room, bringing with them the jovial atmosphere from outside. The change was sudden—the close intimacy of the space suddenly widened, filled with laughter. Laurent found himself smiling, swept up in the mood, watching as Damen had a tankard thrust into his hand.</p><p>As Damen was swept away by servants and well-wishers, Laurent called after them, “See to my Captain. Tonight he is to have anything that he asks for.”</p><p>***</p><p>Dancing and music wholly transformed the great hall. People in clusters laughed and clapped enthusiastically out of time with the music, rosily drunk because the wine had preceded the food, which was only now being brought.</p><p>The kitchens had rallied. The cooks cooked, the attendants attended. Nervous at first over the change in occupancy, the household staff had settled, and duty was transforming into willingness. Laurent heard the murmurs of adoration, of wondering praise. The commons had always loved him. If Lord Touars had hoped for the men and women of his fort to resist the Prince, he had wished in vain. It was more like the commons rolled over and waited to be rubbed on the belly.</p><p>Damen was not yet present when he arrived. Laurent supposed, with the ridiculous bulk he possessed, it would take the servants longer to scrub clean the surface his body and cover it in cloth. As he moved into the hall, he was greeted with the smiles of his men, too drunk to be nervous in the presence of their Prince.</p><p>He found himself approached by a man dressed in yellow, with his dark beard neatly trimmed. He had been informed that the small retinue that had ridden in with the last of the Patrans was that of Torveld, Prince of Patras. Torveld was here accompanying his men, though he had not taken part in the fight.</p><p>He greeted Laurent now with a broad grin.</p><p>“It pleases me greatly to see you again.”</p><p>“Torveld,” Laurent gripped the outstretched arm that was offered. “I will forever be grateful for your assistance here. I could not have won this fight without you.”</p><p>Torveld shook his head genially. “My brother is unhappy with me, I admit. I came against his wishes. But I could not stand by idly. Your words in Arles moved me greatly, and once I had gained Erasmus’ trust he shared with me the full story of his experience in your uncle’s court.” Torveld’s eyes darkened with anger. “I would not see such a man take the throne.”</p><p>It was an incredible relief, to have succeeded in revealing to another person his uncle’s true nature. He had been unsure, in Arles, if Torveld would take his word for what it was—he saw the honey-gold curls of Erasmus in the Patran Prince’s retinue, and felt a rush of gratitude.</p><p>“I am afraid, however, that you will receive no further help from me after this.” Torveld was still speaking, “I ride for Bazal tomorrow; I cannot act against my brother’s orders again.”</p><p>“Of course,” Laurent said, “I would not think to ask any more of you. As I said, you will forever have my gratitude for your actions here today.”</p><p>They parted ways shortly thereafter, having discussed briefly the battle and both their journeys south. Torveld returned to his retinue, and Laurent made his way to the long table, heavy with gilded dishes. He ate and drank—though he did not touch the wine—and engaged in light conversation with those surrounding him. He found his eyes flickering, every so often, towards the entryway, as if pulled there by some magnetizing force.</p><p>So he saw it when Damen entered, laced into aristocrat’s clothing. He had bathed, blood scrubbed away, and his hair had been trimmed. The tumble of dark curls fell like ink to skim his neck just below his ears. His skin, which had grown pallid after weeks locked in the palace at Arles, had browned in the sun on their ride south, so that it glowed now like bronze in the light of the torches. His eyes moved carefully across the room, the sort of long, scrolling look he would give when assessing a situation laid out before him.</p><p>Laurent busied himself with obtaining a goblet of water from an attendant. When he looked back, he saw that Damen had made his way over to Torveld. Laurent continued on in conversation with the man seated next to him, who was explaining something about the architecture of the fort’s walls. But he found his eyes straying, eventually, back to Damen.</p><p>He was speaking, now, with the slave. Erasmus was kneeling, face flushed and eyes adoring as he stared up at Damen. They each wore gold, but Damen’s cuffs were concealed by sleeves, his collar only an impression under the fine Veretian cloth that ran halfway up his neck. He was smiling, but there was tension in the line of his shoulders as he looked at the man bowing before him. Torveld appeared entirely at ease, but Damen—there was some expression which, again, frustrated all Laurent’s efforts to decipher it.</p><p>He tore his eyes away, and when next he found them wandering back his gaze was returned. Across the room, their eyes met; Laurent rose impatiently, and made his way over.</p><p>“You aren’t going to come and eat?”</p><p>“I should return to oversee the work outside. Ravenel should have impeccable defenses. I want…I want to do that for you,” Damen said.</p><p>“It can wait. You just won me a fort,” said Laurent. “Let me spoil you a little.”</p><p>They stood by the wall, and as Laurent spoke, he leaned his shoulder against the contoured stone. He pitched his voice for the space between them, private and unhurried.</p><p>“I remember. You take a great deal of pleasure in small victories.” Damen quotes his own words back to him.</p><p>“It’s not small,” said Laurent. “It’s the first time I’ve ever won a play against my uncle.”</p><p>The words were simple in their honesty. Light from the torches flickered over Damen’s face. Conversation around them was a faded wax and wane of sound, mingling with the restrained colors, the reds, browns and dimmed blues of flame light.</p><p>“You know that isn’t true. You won against him in Arles when you had Torveld take the slaves to Patras.”</p><p>“That wasn’t a play against my uncle. That was a play against Nicaise. Boys are easy. At thirteen,” said Laurent, “you could have led me around by the nose.”</p><p>“I can’t believe you were ever easy.”</p><p>“Think of the greenest innocent you’ve ever tumbled,” said Laurent. It was easier to speak about, here, in the warmth of victory that felt so far removed from his uncle. When Damen didn’t answer, he raised a brow, saying, “I forgot, you don’t fuck boys.”</p><p>Across the hall there was a muted burst of laughter at some distant minor antic. The hall was a hazy background of sounds and shapes. The light was a warm torch glow.</p><p>Damen said, “Men, sometimes.”</p><p>“In the absence of women?”</p><p>“When I want them.”</p><p>“If I’d known that, I might have felt a frisson of danger, lying next to you.”</p><p>“You did know that,” said Damen.</p><p>His gaze was heated, intense. The honesty was like a flame, burning away all pretense of humor. Laurent swallowed, and pushed himself away from the wall.</p><p>“Come and eat,” Laurent said.</p><p>They made their way to the table. In Veretian parlance, it was a relaxed affair, people already eating bread with fingers and meat from knife points. But the table was arrayed with the best the kitchens could provide at short notice: spiced meats, pheasant with apples, birds stuffed with raisins and cooked in milk. Damen reached out for a sliver of meat, and Laurent gripped his wrist, stopping him, drawing his arm back from the table.</p><p>“Torveld tells me that in Akielos, it’s the slave who feeds the master.”</p><p>“That’s right.”</p><p>“Then you can’t have any objection,” said Laurent, picking up the morsel, and lifting it.</p><p>He kept his gaze steady, with no demure lowering of the eyes. <em>You did know that, </em>Damen had said, and it was true. Laurent had known it in the inn at Nesson, curled in front of the fire. He had known it in the tent lined with furs, ice melting in his hands. He had known it every time that Damen lifted his fingers to unravel, slowly, the intricate laces.</p><p>“I don’t have any objection,” said Damen.</p><p>He stayed where he was, challenging, as if to see how far Laurent might take this. Laurent arched his brows slightly. He had never been one to back down from a challenge.</p><p>He shifted in, and brought the meat to Damen’s lips.</p><p>He felt the warm breath as Damen bit down, saw the muscles in his jaw flex as he chewed, slowly. He allowed his fingers to brush, just barely, against Damen’s lips. When he picked up the next sliver of meat, it was Damen who leaned in.</p><p>He took a second bite. His eyes were not on the food; they remained steady on Laurent. Aware of the gaze, Laurent held himself, controlled, repressing the heat that pulsed through him. Damen looked at him as if he were searching for something, and there was a kind of satisfaction in the upward curve of his mouth, at what he found.</p><p>Damen drew back, allowing the moment to be easy: a small, shared intimacy at the table, one that passed largely unnoticed by the other diners. Laurent released a breath.</p><p>Around them, the conversation shifted to other things, news from the border, moments of the battle, discussion of tactics on the field. Laurent’s gaze returned, continually, to Damen, whose eyes remained locked on him with magnetizing force.</p><p>Someone had brought a kithara, and Erasmus was playing, soft, unobtrusive notes. It was restrained, gentle, opposite to the spectacle of Veretian entertainments. The overall effect was one of simplicity, but the notes were striking in their beauty. In the quiet between songs, Damen said, “Play the Conquest of Arsaces.” In the next moment, there was the stirring of soft, melancholy notes.</p><p>It was not a song that Laurent had ever heard, and it moved him in strange ways. Erasmus had a lovely voice. Notes pulsed, winding through the hall, and Laurent felt unsteady as he listened to the Akielon words.</p><p> </p><p>            <em>They are surely gods who speak to him</em></p><p>
  <em>            With steady voices</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>            A glance from him drives men to their knees</em>
</p><p>
  <em>            His sigh brings cities to ruin</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>            I wonder if he dreams of surrender </em>
</p><p>
  <em>            On a bed of white flowers</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>            Or is that the mistaken hope</em>
</p><p>
  <em>            Of every would-be conqueror?</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>            The world was not made for beauty like his</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The song ended softly, and although most of the men assembled in the hall could not understand the language, the unassuming performance of the slave had shifted the mood into something more subdued. There was a smattering of applause. Laurent could feel Damen’s eyes, once more, burning like embers. He held himself separate, for a moment, digesting the echo of words about conquerors and surrendering and beauty.</p><p>He struggled, for a moment, with breath. His chest felt tight. Damen’s gaze was still on him, and he was sure that it was searching for something, asking a question that Laurent felt unprepared to answer.</p><p>
  <em>I wonder if he dreams of surrender.</em>
</p><p>The desire was a poison, corroding him. And yet he felt the want as an ache, a hollowness that yawned within him. There was a sort of gnawing hunger, a desperate need to turn and meet the gaze of the man sitting next to him. It filled Laurent with fear.</p><p>
  <em>On a bed of white flowers.</em>
</p><p>Translated into Veretian, the words did not hold the same sort of rounded beauty. It was only in Akielon that they fell, exactly, into a cadence that could twist itself into the listener’s body and soul.</p><p>Next to him, Damen stood, abruptly. Laurent remained frozen as he left, moving out of the hall, away from the revelry. At the table, men continued with their conversations—yet the world felt muted. Laurent’s attention was focused, acutely, on the empty chair beside his, on the ache of absence.</p><p>There was no choice that did not end with pain. Laurent knew this, had known this since he had first laid eyes on Damen, chained in the palace at Arles. But he had never expected this sort of pain—the burning desire that could leave only ash.</p><p>He stood, and left the light of the hall.</p><p>Tomorrow, Damen would be gone. He held onto this fact as he navigated the dim hallways, stopping only to get directions from the sentries on patrol. Damen would leave, and cross the border, and cease to exist. He would become Damianos, and they would fight twinned wars with their countries, until one day, maybe, if they both managed to live, they would face each other as enemies.</p><p>Tomorrow, Damen would be gone. It would be as if he had never existed. Laurent’s life would suffer no more Akielon interruptions; his attention would focus entirely on his uncle. He would no longer spend nights discussing strategy, would never again see those dark curls bent over a map. It would be simple. It would be the way it was always meant to be.</p><p>He had reached the battlements, cool in the night air, empty of soldiers. He approached the stone walkway, toothed crenellation to the left, with torches lit at intervals. There was a single set of circular stone stairs that led to this section of the fort; it was private, tucked away.</p><p>Damen’s arms were braced against the thick stone walls. He lifted his head and turned to watch as Laurent made his way, alone, unattended, to meet him. He fitted himself next to Damen, comfortably, unobtrusively, refusing the allow the cresting wave of emotion to release itself in his chest. They stood on the edge of the fort they had won together.</p><p>Damen spoke, voice strained in its attempt at a conversational tone. “You know, the slaves you gifted to Torveld are worth almost the same as the men that he’s given you.”</p><p>“I would say exactly that much.”</p><p>“I thought you helped them out of compassion.”</p><p>“No, you didn’t,” said Laurent.</p><p>Damen released a breath that was not quite laughter. They both remembered the vitriol, the hatred that had cut between them like a wire, at the time that Damen had made his request on behalf of the Akielon slaves. Damen looked out at the darkness beyond the torches, eyes turned southward.</p><p>“My father,” he said, “hated Veretians. He called them cowards, deceivers. It’s what he taught me to believe. He would have been just like these border lords, Touars and Makedon. War hungry. I can only imagine what he would have thought of you.”</p><p>Laurent felt the impact of the words like a blow. It was not the sort of truth that he had been expecting, when he had made his way up the winding stairs to find Damen. He thought of his own father, his own childhood, the way he had heard his own brother speak of Akielons: barbarians. Bloodthirsty. Violent and vicious, nightmare warriors. He felt, painfully, what Damen was attempting to do.</p><p>“Your own father would be proud today.”</p><p>“That I picked up a sword and put on my brother’s ill-fitting clothes? I’m sure he would be,” said Laurent.</p><p>“You don’t want the throne,” Damen said after a moment, during which his eyes passed carefully over Laurent’s face.</p><p>“I want the throne,” said Laurent. “Do you honestly think, after all you’ve seen, that I’d shy from power or the chance to wield it?”</p><p>Damen’s mouth twisted. “No.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>He repeated the word, an affirmation meant more for himself than for Damen. The truth—a truth that lay at the core of him, a truth he could never bring himself to admit—was that he had not wanted the crown, after Auguste’s death. He had never expected to become the Crown Prince; his future was torn away, the flesh and blood of family replaced with unforgiving gold. But now—it was all he had to live for. To give up, to stop fighting this battle with his uncle, would be to lose sense of all meaning.</p><p>Damen’s voice drew him out of his thoughts. “I never questioned the way my father saw the world. It was enough for me to be the kind of son he was proud of. I could never bring shame to his memory, but for the first time I realize I don’t want to be…”</p><p>Laurent held his breath. For just a moment, it felt as if Damen might reveal the truth that lay, heavy and unsaid, between them. Laurent found himself waiting, like a man staring down at a bandaged wound, unready to peel back the bindings and face the jagged scarring beneath. The air between them was fragile. Everything between them was fragile.</p><p>He could see, behind Damen’s eyes, a torrent of emotion. He understood, in part, the pain of sundering one self from another, of releasing long-held pieces of the past. Laurent waited; every breath felt sharpened, edged.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” said Damen, finally.</p><p>Laurent had not been expecting it. He looked at Damen, trying desperately to understand what was moving in him, why he had said it. “Why would you apologize to me?”</p><p>Damen released an unsteady breath. He said, “I didn’t understand what being King meant to you.”</p><p>“What’s that?”</p><p>“An end to fighting.”</p><p>It felt, a bit, as if a fist had gripped his heart. He was suddenly stripped raw, seen; he felt the fear of it, of this part of him revealed. Shock moved across his features—he repressed it, but not quickly enough.</p><p>“I wish it could have been different between us, I wish I could have behaved to you with more honor. I want you to know that you will have a friend across the border, whatever happens tomorrow, whatever happens to both of us.”</p><p>It was a promise he could never keep—a promise he could not hope to keep. Yet Laurent felt in himself the desperate urge to cling to the words, like a drowning man clutching at any piece of debris he can manage to find.</p><p>“Friends,” said Laurent. “Is that what we are?”</p><p>His voice was tight in his throat; the question was broken, the answer obvious; it was so agonizingly obvious, what was happening between them, the air disappearing, mote by mote.</p><p>Damen said, voice helpless with honesty, “Laurent, I am your slave.”</p><p>It was false, and yet it felt true—the words lay in the air between them, cracked like a broken shell, spilling out their tangled contents. The truth of it sunk into Laurent’s bones, unshakeable. They were both breathing shallowly, inhaling each other’s air. Damen reached out, eyes searching Laurent’s face—always searching.</p><p>The touch was gentle, fingers soft on Laurent’s jaw, thumb passing over his cheekbone. Laurent did not draw back, only stood, unmoving, heart clawing at his chest. He closed his eyes before Damen’s hand met his skin, as if to protect himself. Freed from sight, he felt only the touch, and the heat of the touch. Damen’s palm slid over the nape of his neck; slowly, Laurent felt him draw closer. The hot breath fanned across his face. He could draw away, if he wanted to—could pull back, and break whatever spell had been created by this moment. But he remained still.</p><p>The kiss, when it came, was a whisper, as quiet and sweet as a summer breeze. The tension in Laurent’s body peaked; he was a man on the edge of a knife, every muscle primed for flight. But he stayed. His lips parted, just a fraction, and the first kiss became a second, and Laurent felt as if he might break.</p><p>It felt, in all the violence between them, in all the blood of the past, like some sort of healing. It was incomplete; it was a scar, knitting skin back together. It bore with it the memory of every wound, yet Laurent could not draw away, felt remade with the desire to shelter this, to chase it to its source, to sacrifice some piece of himself in exchange for the emotion the wrenched him open and left him exposed under the pinprick stars.</p><p>
  <em>“Your Highness—” </em>
</p><p>They broke apart at the voice, the burst of sound, of nearby footsteps. A head was cresting the stone steps. Laurent’s stomach turned to stone.</p><p>It was Jord.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter Eighteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warning: child abuse, references to past sexual abuse</p><p>As always, there is nothing explicit past what Pacat included in the chapter from the original book. However, this chapter does contain a lot of memories and emotions regarding past child sexual abuse, so please be aware of that before reading!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Abruptly separated, Laurent stood across from Damen, just outside one of the islands of light where the torches flamed at intervals. The length of the battlements stretched out on either side and Jord, several feet off, was halted in his approach.</p><p>“I ordered the section cleared,” Damen said. Laurent remained silent, heart pounding. There was a boyish swell of guilt at being caught; a sense of wrongness permeated the moment that had been previously unsullied in its privacy.</p><p>Confronted with the look of disgust on Jord’s face, Laurent saw himself as if from outside his body. He saw the Prince of Vere, kissing an Akielon soldier. The men in camp had talked, had speculated about this—Laurent was well aware of the rumors surrounding what he did with his Akielon bed slave. Yet the expression Jord now wore made it clear that he had never truly believed it possible.</p><p>“I’m not here for you,” said Jord. He was speaking to Damen.</p><p>“Then state your business and leave.”</p><p>“My business is with the Prince.”</p><p>Laurent was not entirely sure what to make of the anger, lodged deep in Jord’s eyes, as he stared at Damen. They had worked together on the journey south; the three of them had spent many nights strategizing and planning out drills for the troop. Jord was not Enguerran—he did not possess some deep-set rage towards Akielos that extended to all its citizens. He had accepted Damen, and treated him with respect.</p><p>Laurent cast his mind out for some way to explain the venom held now in Jord’s gaze. It went beyond resentment at the loss of his captaincy—it was mixed with revulsion, horror. As if the thought of his Prince crawling into bed with an Akielon was so abhorrent that it had sparked him to rage.</p><p>Laurent pushed himself away from the wall.</p><p>“Here to warn me about the dangers of making command decisions in bed?” He said, coolly. The wave of shame that had come at the sight of Jord’s disgust had hardened, bristled into defensive anger. Jord was in no place to be making judgements.</p><p>There was a short, spectacular silence. The flaming of the torches, the wind striking the walls were over-loud. Jord stood very still.</p><p>“Something to say?” said Laurent.</p><p>Jord was holding off from them. The same stubborn distaste was in his voice. “Not with him here.”</p><p>“He’s your Captain,” said Laurent.</p><p>“He knows well enough he should go.”</p><p>“While we compare notes on spreading for the enemy?” said Laurent.</p><p>Jord fell silent once again. In the circle of torchlight, Damen’s eyes darted between them, his expression unraveling.</p><p>“Well?” said Laurent.</p><p>Jord’s eyes had turned to Damen, full of bloody-mindedness. He looked as if he might be sick; his lips trembled with unsaid words. The silence stretched out, thick and tangible with some indecipherable undercurrent.</p><p>Damen stepped forward. “Maybe—”</p><p>More sound on the stairs, the clatter of several urgent footsteps. Jord turned. Two soldiers were coming to the section that Damen had ordered cleared. Laurent watched as Damen passed a hand over his face in exasperation. The air between them, which moments ago had been close and heated, was now cold as ice.</p><p>“Captain. I apologize for the breach in your orders. But there is a situation developing downstairs.”</p><p>Damen frowned. “A situation?”</p><p>“A group of the men have it into their minds to make sport with one of the prisoners.”</p><p>Laurent turned to gaze at Jord, whose breathing was not entirely controlled. The revulsion remained on his features, but his eyes sparked now with fear.</p><p>“The prisoners are to be well treated,” said Damen. “If some of the men are too full of drink, you know how to keep them at bay. My orders were clear.”</p><p>There was a hesitation. The soldier speaking was one of Enguerran’s men, a career soldier, polished and professional. He was likely one of the men that Damen had promoted that very night in the process of seeing to the fort’s infrastructure.</p><p>“Captain, your orders were clear, but…” he paused, helplessly.</p><p>“But?”</p><p>“Some of the men seem to think that His Highness will support their actions.”</p><p>Jord’s eyes found Laurent’s. From the way it was said, it was obvious what type of sport the soldier meant. They had been weeks on the road without camp followers. Yet he had entrusted Damen and Jord to ensure that the men capable of such actions as this had been weeded out of the troop.</p><p>Every muscle in Jord’s body was held taut; his face twisted in desperation. Laurent stared back coldly, impassively. It was immediately obvious what had caused Jord to breach orders to find him—who was behind this interruption. Laurent said, precisely, deliberately, “Aimeric.”</p><p>Across from him, Damen turned. Laurent kept his eyes on Jord, whose broken features were enough to confirm that he was correct, for of course it was for Aimeric’s sake that Jord had come here.</p><p>Laurent’s blood was ice in his veins. Jord went to his knees.</p><p>“Your Highness,” said Jord. He wasn’t looking at anyone, but at the dark stones beneath him. “I know I’ve done wrong. I’ll accept any punishment for that. But Aimeric was loyal to his family. He was loyal to what he knew. He doesn’t deserve to be handed around the men for that.” Jord’s head was bowed, but his hands on his knees were fists. “If my years of service to you are worth anything at all, let them be worth that.”</p><p>Every word was a knife. Laurent felt the physical, stinging pain that came with each excuse. It gutted him, that Jord was so ready to forgive a man he had never truly known.</p><p>“Jord,” said Laurent, “this is why he fucked you. This moment.” <em>He doesn’t love you. He never did. You were only ever a means to an end.</em></p><p>“I know that,” said Jord.</p><p>“Orlant,” said Laurent, as the rage became a toothed creature in his chest, “didn’t deserve to die alone on the sword of a self-serving aristocrat he thought was a friend.”</p><p>“I <em>know that,</em>” said Jord. “I’m not asking you to let Aimeric go free or to forgive him what he’s one. It’s just that I know him, and that night, he was…”</p><p>Upset? Devastated? Carved into pieces by what he had done? Jord did not complete the sentence—he did not need to. They had both seen Aimeric; Laurent remembered the pity he had felt, the way his heart had ached for the young man who had to learn for the first time how to wash blood from his hands. Jord had seen the aftermath of the guilt, but he had not seen the way Aimeric held the sword. He had not seen the life leave Orlant in a final wretched breath.</p><p>“I should make you watch,” said Laurent, “while he’s stripped down for every man in the troop to have him.”</p><p>Damen stepped forward. “You don’t mean this. You need him as a hostage.”</p><p>“I don’t need him continent,” said Laurent.</p><p>Like a speared boar in a bloody fury, he was on edge, ready to turn on anyone who might approach. He kept his face smooth, but he could not swallow the anger that rose in his chest. Damen’s words only infuriated him further—how could <em>he </em>believe himself to have any idea about what Laurent meant? About what Laurent wanted? None of them, not a single man present, could possibly understand the creature that tore at itself within him.</p><p>Damen said, “It there’s to be justice for Aimeric, then let it be justice, reasonably decided, publicly applied, not the men taking matters into their own hands.”</p><p>Laurent could feel what he was trying to do—could hear the careful diplomacy in the words. The space between them was a chasm, an indomitable emptiness that they would never be able to cross. The kiss felt like a ghost; something from another life, with another man.</p><p>“Then by all means,” said Laurent, “let us have justice. Since you’re both so eager for it. Drag Aimeric away from his admirers. Bring him to me in the south tower. Let us have everything out in the open.”</p><p>“Yes, Your Highness.”</p><p>The guards bowed briefly and left, followed by Jord, making for the south tower. Laurent was left alone with Damen, who took a step forward. For a moment, he looked as if he might reach out to bridge the gap between them.</p><p>“What are you doing?” he said. His voice was all emotion: gentle and sad and confused. “When I said there should be justice for Aimeric, I meant later, not now, when you’re…” He gazed at Laurent, searching, “When we…”</p><p>Whatever Damen was looking for, he would not find. Laurent lifted his brows, uncaring, a shield of impassivity that held back the monstrosity clawing its way towards his heart.</p><p>Laurent said, “If Jord wants to get down on his knees for Aimeric, he should know exactly who he’s crawling for.”</p><p>***</p><p>The south tower was crowned by a platform and a parapet pierced through with slim, pointed arches. Below the platform was the room where Damen, Laurent, and Jord gathered, a small round space connected to the parapet by straight stone stairs. During a fight—during any attack on the fort—the room would be an assembling point for archers and swordsmen, but now it functioned as an informal guards’ room, with a stout wooden table, and three chairs. The men who would usually be on watch, both here and above, had cleared out at Damen’s orders.</p><p>Laurent, holding himself with tenuous control, ordered that not only Aimeric should be brought, but also refreshments. The food arrived first. Servants battled up to the tower laden with plates of meats, and bread, and pitchers of wine and of water. The goblets they brought were gold, and carved with an image of a deer, mid-hunt. Laurent sat in the high-backed wooden chair by the table and crossed his legs. He did not touch the food. He was not hungry.</p><p>His body sang with the tension of repressed emotion. He kept his gaze cool, his posture straight-backed, his fingers poised on the rim of a goblet. His heart was a caged animal, pacing and snarling, starved half to death. He waited for Aimeric as a wolf might wait for a lamb.</p><p>Laurent did not look at Damen, who stood a few paces away with Jord. He had felt the man’s desperate confusion in the silence between them as they made their way to the tower, and had refused to meet the searching gaze. Whatever fragile thing had grown between them—whatever soft, sweet moment had begun to unfold—was lost, swallowed by the ravenous creature that was rage. Laurent refused to let himself consider it, or mourn its death. He had been foolish, to think he would be allowed the tenderness of the kiss. To think that there was any piece of himself that his uncle’s poison might not touch.</p><p>Aimeric was dragged in by two guards. He resisted, his hands lashed behind his back, his arms gripped by his guards. He had been stripped of his armor; his undershirt was streaked with dirt and sweat and it hung partially open in a mess of laces. His curls looked more pulped than polished, and there was a cut across his left cheek.</p><p>His eyes retained their defiance. There was an intrinsic antagonism in Aimeric’s nature, Laurent knew. He liked a fight. He liked the attention it brought.</p><p>When he saw Jord, he turned white. And said, “<em>No.</em>” His guard shoved him inside.</p><p>“The loving reunion,” said Laurent.</p><p>When Aimeric heard that, he gathered his defiance to himself. The guards took up their hold again, roughly. Though his face was still white, Aimeric lifted his chin.</p><p>“Have you brought me here to gloat? I’m glad I did what I did. I did it for my family, and for the south. I’d do it again.”</p><p>It was the lie he had learned to tell. The lie that others believed to be true. The lie that, perhaps, Aimeric wanted even to believe himself.</p><p>“That was pretty,” said Laurent. “Now the truth.”</p><p>“That was the truth,” said Aimeric. “I’m not afraid of you. My father’s going to crush you.”</p><p>“Your father has ridden to Fortaine with his tail between his legs.”</p><p>“To regroup. My father would never turn his back on his family. Not like you. Spreading for your brother isn’t the same thing as family loyalty.” Aimeric’s breathing was shallow. The words were meant to wound; they were the only weapon he had left. Vicious, echoed rumors.</p><p>“That reminds me,” said Laurent.</p><p>He stood, the goblet hanging casually from his fingertips. He regarded Aimeric a moment. Then he changed his grip on the goblet, lifted it, and brought it with calculate brutality in a backhanded blow across Aimeric’s face.</p><p>Aimeric cried out. The blow snapped his head to one side, as the heavy gold impacted on his cheekbone with a sick, solid sound. It left him reeling in the arms of his guards. Behind him, there was the sudden sound of movement as Jord threw himself forward, and the dull impact as Damen stopped him.</p><p>“Keep your mouth off my brother,” said Laurent.</p><p>In the darkest part of himself, he felt the physical release of the violence like a calming breath. There was the satisfaction of pain transformed to anger and translated, savagely, into bloodied and bruised flesh. There was the instinctive urge to complete this translation in its entirety, to bring the goblet down over and over again, until the pain of betrayal had been expelled entirely and subsumed into Aimeric’s body.</p><p>It was not kindness that drove Laurent to replace the goblet, with exquisite precision, on the table. Nor was it mercy. It was the knowledge that there were other, deeper wounds he might inflict, injury that could not be patched up and healed over.</p><p>Aimeric blinked with glazed, stupefied eyes; the contents of the goblet had spray outward, wetting Aimeric’s stunned, slack face. There was blood on his lips, where something was bitten or split, and a red brand on his cheekbone.</p><p>He said, thickly, “You can hit me as much as you like.”</p><p>“Can I? I think we’re going to enjoy each other, you and I. Tell me what else I can do to you.”</p><p>“Stop this,” said Jord. “He’s just a boy. He’s just a boy, he’s not old enough for this, he’s scared. He thinks you’re going to wreck his family.”</p><p>Aimeric turned his bruised, bloody face to the words, in disbelief that Jord was defending him. Laurent turned to face Jord at the same time, unable to hide his own shock and resentment as the cold disbelief washed over him.</p><p><em>I was just a boy, </em>he did not say, <em>when my family was destroyed. I was just a boy when I was thrust into the pit of vipers that is my uncle’s court. I was just a boy, </em>he could not stop himself thinking it, could not stop the raw scrape of emotion, <em>when he broke me, and nobody did anything to stop him. </em>Aimeric was no more a boy than Laurent; there was six months difference between them, at most. Yet since the age of thirteen, Laurent had lived without any protector. Jord’s desperate pleas on Aimeric’s behalf now were gut-wrenching, sickening. Did he think Aimeric just a boy, also, when he fucked him?</p><p>“I am going to wreck his family,” said Laurent. “But it’s not his family he’s fighting for.”</p><p>“Of course it is,” said Jord. “Why else would he betray his friends?”</p><p>“You can’t think of a reason?”</p><p>Laurent had returned his attention to Aimeric, drawing close to him, so that they faced on another. Like a lover, Laurent smiled and touched a stray curl, tucking it behind Aimeric’s ear. Aimeric flinched, violently, then repressed the flinch, though he wasn’t able to control his breathing.</p><p>Tenderly, Laurent drew a fingertip through the blood that welled from Aimeric’s split lip.</p><p>“Pretty face,” he murmured, sweetly. Then his fingers dropped back to brush Aimeric’s jaw, tilting it up as though for a kiss. Aimeric made a choked sound in response to pain; the bruised flesh under Laurent’s fingers was white. “I bet you were a peach of a little boy. A pretty peach. How old were you when you fucked my uncle?”</p><p>Around them, he felt the room go still. It did not matter. His eyes were locked on Aimeric’s, drinking in the naked fear across his face. Laurent said, conversationally, “Were you old enough to come?”</p><p>“Shut up,” said Aimeric.</p><p>“Did he tell you you’d be together again, if you’d just do this one thing? Did he tell you how much he missed you?”</p><p>
  <em>You’ve been such a good boy, Laurent, just be good a little longer…don’t cry, now. I’ve done so much for you. All I’ve ever asked you for is this one thing…</em>
</p><p>“<em>Shut up,</em>” said Aimeric.</p><p>“He was lying. He wouldn’t take you back. You’re too old.”</p><p>
  <em>You’ve grown so quickly…no, shh, be quiet. Turn around. </em>
</p><p>“You don’t know,” said Aimeric.</p><p>“Thick-voiced and rough-cheeked, you’d make him sick.”</p><p>
  <em>You disgust me, Laurent. Begging like a child. You’re a man now—act like it.</em>
</p><p>“You don’t know <em>anything—</em>”</p><p>“With your ageing body, your overripe attentions, you’re nothing but—”</p><p>
  <em>You were such a lovely boy.</em>
</p><p>“You’re wrong about us! <em>He loves me!</em>”</p><p>
  <em>I love you, Laurent. You don’t want me to leave, do you? You don’t want to be alone?</em>
</p><p>Aimeric flung the words out defiantly, they came out over-loud. Laurent was poisonous with disgust, unable to remove the past entirely from the present. He saw Aimeric, and in Aimeric there was another boy, waiting at Chastillon for a man who would never come. The anger he felt was a tangled mess.</p><p>“Loves you? You paltry little upstart. I doubt he even preferred you. How long did you hold his attention? A few fucks while he was bored in the country?”</p><p>“You don’t know anything about us,” said Aimeric.</p><p><em>You’re wrong, </em>his blood simmered in his veins, <em>I know everything about you. </em>He could see, with perfect clarity, how it would have happened; could hear the words the Regent had said, the coaxing, the way Aimeric had been pried apart. He knew exactly what they had done, all the things his uncle liked, all the pretty promises he always made.</p><p>“I know he didn’t bring you to court. He left you in Fortaine. You never asked yourself why?”</p><p>“He didn’t want to leave me. He told me,” said Aimeric.</p><p>It was like speaking to some past version of himself.</p><p>“I bet you were easy. A few compliments, a little attention, and you gave him all the naïve pleasures of a country virgin in his bed. He would have found it diverting. At first. What else is there to do in Fortaine? But the novelty wore off.”</p><p>“No,” said Aimeric.</p><p>“You’re pretty enough, and you were obviously hot for it. But used goods are not appealing unless they are something worth using. And the cheap wine you drink in a backwater tavern is not the kind that you serve at your own table, given choice.”</p><p>“<em>No,</em>” said Aimeric.</p><p>“My uncle is discriminating. Not like Jord,” said Laurent, “who’ll take a middle-aged man’s sloppy seconds and treat it like it’s worth something.”</p><p>“<em>Stop it,</em>” said Aimeric, but Laurent refused. Like a shark that’s smelled blood, he was set on his course, determined to destroy completely whatever fantasy Aimeric had constructed, to leave him facing a reality that was just as cruel as the one he himself had faced when he’d turned fifteen.</p><p>“Why do you think my uncle asked you to whore yourself out to a common armsman before he’d deign to touch you? That’s what he thought you were good for. Screwing my soldiers. And you couldn’t even do that right.”</p><p>Behind him, Damen said, “That’s enough.”</p><p>Aimeric was crying. Ugly, wracking sobs that shook his whole body. The sound filled the room. Before anyone else could act or speak, Damen said, “Get Aimeric out of here.”</p><p>“You cold-blooded son of a bitch,” came Jord’s voice, unsteady, wavering. Laurent rounded on him, deliberately, the beast locked behind his ribcage still screaming.</p><p>“And then of course,” said Laurent, “there’s you.”</p><p>But Damen said, “No,” and stepped between them, levelling his gaze at Laurent. His voice was hard. “Get out.” He was speaking to Jord. It was a flat order. He didn’t turn around to look and see whether his command would be followed—it was. As Jord tore himself away, Damen said, in the same hard voice, “Calm down.” This time, he was speaking to Laurent.</p><p>“I wasn’t finished.”</p><p>“Finished what? Reducing every man in the room? Jord isn’t any kind of match for you in this mood, and you know it. Calm down.”</p><p>The anger was still clawing its way into his throat. He stared at Damen, considering every word he might say, every way he might cause pain. Damen met the gaze, unflinching.</p><p>“Are you going to try it with me? Or do you only take pleasure in attacking those who cannot defend themselves?” Damen’s voice was a stone, immovable and heavy. He stared down at Laurent. Around them, the tower room was empty. Damen had sent everyone else out. “I remember the last time you were like this. You blundered so badly you gave your uncle the excuse he needed to have you stripped of your lands.”</p><p>For a moment, Laurent wanted nothing more than to rip out his throat. Violence tasted like blood on the back of his tongue, an impulse he had to struggle to swallow. The atmosphere rose, hot, thick and deadly.</p><p>Abruptly, Laurent turned away. He put the heels of his palms on the table, gripping its edge, standing with his head down, his arms stiffly braced, his back knotted with tension. He forced himself to breathe, attempting to reconnect the shattered pieces of himself.</p><p>He was still for a moment, then, sharply, he swept his forearm across the table, a sudden, single movement that sent gilt plates and their contents crashing to the floor. An orange rolled. Water from the pitcher dripped from the table’s edge onto the floor. He wanted to tear apart the tower, piece by piece. It felt impossible that he should absorb the emotion back into his body, and lock it away.</p><p>The silence in the room stretched out. Laurent felt Damen’s eyes on him, felt the steadiness of the gaze. The words echoed in his head: <em>I remember the last time you were like this. You blundered so badly you gave your uncle the excuse he needed to have you stripped of your lands.</em></p><p>Laurent remembered it, too. He remembered the way the whip had sounded, the color of the blood, the twist of Damen's features into agony. He remembered his own rage, the same rage that coursed through him now, the same rage he had been carrying since he was thirteen.</p><p>Laurent spoke without turning around. It was an effort to force the words through his teeth; he kept his voice clipped, precise.</p><p>“What you are saying is that when I lose control, I make mistakes. My uncle knows that, of course. It would have been an amusing pleasure for him to send Aimeric to work against me, you’re right. You, with your barbaric attitudes, your brutish, domineering arrogance, are always <em>right.</em>”</p><p>Acknowledging this truth did nothing to quell the anger; if anything, there was a new swell of hatred. He pressed his fingers into the wood of the table until his knuckles turned white.</p><p>“I remember that trip to Fortaine. He left the capital for two weeks, then sent word he was extending it to three. He said it was his business with Guion that needed more time.”</p><p>He did not say, <em>I was nearly fifteen. My voice had begun to deepen. The week before, he took me to Chastillon, and he pushed my head down. He did not want to hear me. </em>He did not say, <em>I felt as though I had done something wrong. As if my body had betrayed me—I hated myself. I would have done anything to bring him back. I would have done anything to stop him leaving me alone.</em></p><p>Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Damen take a step forward, features painted with concern.</p><p>Laurent said, “If you want me to calm down, <em>get out</em>.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>the reference to "a boy at Chastillon" is from a memory I wrote into book one</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter Nineteen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warning - this is the chapter with the sex scene, so there's that + also vague references to past abuse throughout as Laurent is struggling with past trauma + new experiences.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a long while, there was nothing but the senseless rage. He stood, braced against the table, hardly aware of his surroundings. Like a drowning man who can do nothing but fight desperately to remain afloat, he forced breath into his lungs as the battering waves of emotion crashed, mercilessly, against him.</p><p>He was furious with Aimeric. Laurent wanted to drag him back into the room and destroy him, piece by piece, wanted to scream at him <em>how could you possibly believe that he loved you? When he hurt you, when he cast you aside like garbage—how could you possibly be so stupid? How could you think that was love? </em>And he was furious with Jord, for his willingness to forgive such naivety and the harm it had caused, for acting as if someone so warped and poisoned as Aimeric could ever be worthy of love. <em>How can you forgive him so easily? How can you ever forgive?</em></p><p>He was furious with Damen, for being right, for using the knifepoint of truth without any concern for the way it could gut a man like a pig. For remaining calm when Laurent felt barely able to hold himself together, for seeing through the open jaw of anger to the heart of it, for reducing Aimeric’s betrayal to another piece in the Regent’s game.</p><p>He was furious with the Regent, for knowing that this would happen. For casting Laurent overboard, into the battering ocean of rage that he now must battle for breath. Even in victory, his uncle could hurt him. Laurent felt the acute pain of his own powerlessness, in his own inability to sever himself completely from the strings that his uncle continued to pull.</p><p>He was furious with himself, for the tears that came despite all attempts to stop them. For knowing that the Regent intended him to feel this, and allowing the emotion to overwhelm him anyway. His eyes burned; he pressed a closed fist to his mouth. Crying was for boys. Crying was for naïve children, who waited for promises that would never come true. His shoulders shook, silently.</p><p>It was a brutal reminder of all he could not hope to win. The all-consuming rage—that sharp-toothed, hungry monster—and the frightened, helpless thing that lived in the pit of its stomach—there was no manner of subduing it that left him whole. Release it, and it would devour all those around him, all the plans he had worked so carefully to cultivate. Repress it, cage it, lock it away—and he was left with the hollow pit of its starvation, and the threat always of escape as it gnawed at the fragile bars of its cell.</p><p>Either way, there was pain. Either way, there was his uncle’s hand, moving pawns on a board, tugging puppeteer’s strings, brushing fingers through boys’ hair.</p><p>He was not aware of time passing as he waited for the tide of emotion to ebb. Eventually, he began to return to himself. The anger subsided from something that boiled him alive to a poison that only simmered, acid-hot and burning, in his blood. He breathed deeply as he forced it to cool, to retreat once more behind the frozen shield of unfeeling thought.</p><p>It felt impossible that he had stood, earlier, on the battlements, had felt that warm, breathless thing that was a kiss under the clear sky full of stars. Aimeric had been a cruel, desperate reminder of his uncle’s control. Laurent felt foolish, that he had thought he might have one night unfettered, one night of freedom.</p><p>Because even Damen, he realized with cold horror, was nothing more than a piece in the Regent’s game. Even the gentle hands, the warm breath, the sweet fragility of everything between them—all of it was irrevocably tied to his uncle.</p><p>Damen was a tool, as Aimeric had been a tool. He was a trap, set by the Regent, meant to destroy Laurent. That he had saved Laurent’s life did not matter—that he had resisted the temptation of violence did not matter. The kindness, the infuriating sense of justice, the ridiculous obsession with honor—all of it was only another kind of pain.</p><p>For what sort of man could allow the same arms that had cut down his brother to hold him, carefully, tenderly? What sort of man could stomach a caress from bloodied hands?</p><p>This, too, his uncle had meant him to feel: this twisting guilt, the awful nausea of his desire. Yet he could not deny the hard kernel of truth that was like a second heartbeat, pulsing in his veins, the way that all he wanted broke him open. He felt desperately, hopelessly trapped in the endless tangle of the Regent’s games—felt the anguished need to break, for a moment, from the board across which his entire life had been outlined. There was a sharp point of clarity, in all the tumultuous emotion; a single breath of air, amidst that churning sea of guilt and rage and desire.</p><p>Laurent realized, suddenly, how late it had grown, and how little time was left until dawn. In a handful of hours, Damen would cross the border, and become Damianos. In a handful of hours—but not yet.</p><p>Laurent gathered himself; he left the tower, which had remained miraculously, blessedly empty. He realized, with a sort of hopeless resignation, that this had been Damen’s doing, the orders meant to protect his privacy. He knew it as he knew that Damen would still be awake, despite the late hour, and would likely be working himself to the bone to ensure that the fort was more prepared than it had ever been for the upcoming war.</p><p>To the first guard he came across, he gave clear instructions: tell the servants that the Captain is to be brought to my rooms tonight. And then: fetch a servant to the south tower, with paper, and ink, and wax. The instructions were promptly followed; Laurent sat, alone, at the wooden table, and wrote a series of missives. When he was done, he sealed each letter carefully, and gave them with clear instructions to the same guard, who hurried off.</p><p>And then, with a sharp breath, he made his way to his rooms.</p><p>Stuck as he was in his uncle’s games, left only with a proscribed set of moves, Laurent steeled himself. He could change the rules—could change the way in which the moves were executed. He was determined to break his way out of the cage, to prove that there was some measure of control yet left to him. The impulse was barely contained in its direction, like a wild horse with a bit forced into its mouth. Laurent grasped the reins and committed himself to the ride.</p><p>***</p><p>The rooms were excessive, opulent: through doorway arches, he could see at least two other rooms, with tiled floors and low, lounging couches. The vaulted windows were latticed intricately with iron, the table well supplied with wine and fruits, and the bed, overhung with rose-colored silks that fell in folds so long they pooled out over the floor.</p><p>When Laurent entered, Damen was standing at the open windows. It was a warm night, full-bellied and sweet; the heaviness of summer that was typical of the south felt a little less oppressive under the dark sky. Across Damen’s face ran shock, then confusion, and then, as if fitting a puzzle into place, understanding.</p><p>They faced each other. Laurent stood, four steps inside the room, gazing at Damen. He was dressed still in the Veretian clothing, tight-laced, brightly colored. He had removed the captain’s badge of office, and set it on the table a few paces away. For a moment, neither of them spoke.</p><p>Then, carefully, Damen said, “I’m sorry. Your servants brought me to the wrong rooms.”</p><p>“No they didn’t,” said Laurent.</p><p>There was a slight pause.</p><p>“Aimeric is back in his rooms under guard,” said Damen, as if he had been called only to report. “He’s not going to cause any more trouble.”</p><p>The mention of Aimeric threatened to release the emotion so carefully repressed; Laurent hardened himself, forcing his mind to focus only on the task ahead.</p><p>“I don’t want to talk about Aimeric,” said Laurent. “Or my uncle.”</p><p>He did not want to think about them—did not want to think about anything. His body felt alive with heat as he stepped forward. Damen stared at him, as if searching for some kind of trap.</p><p>Laurent said, “I know you’re planning to leave tomorrow. You’re going to cross the border, and you’re not going to come back. Say it.”</p><p>“I—”</p><p>“Say it.”</p><p>One night. All he needed was one night—he would not let the guilt destroy him. He refused to let it.</p><p>“I’m going to leave tomorrow,” said Damen, in a voice that was not entirely steady. “I’m not going to come back.” He drew in a breath, as if it pained him, “Laurent—”</p><p>“No, I don’t care. Tomorrow you leave. But you’re mine now. You’re still my slave tonight.”</p><p>There was no past, between them—not now. Laurent tore away Marlas, tore away Chastillon, tore away Arles. This was something he could control, something he could rewrite, something he could make un-painful. He pressed a hand to Damen’s chest, pushing him backwards. There was no resistance. They fell onto the roseate silks, his knee alongside Damen’s thigh, his hand over Damen’s heart.</p><p>“I—don’t—”</p><p>“I think you do,” said Laurent.</p><p>He began, methodically, to untie the lacings of the jacket under his fingers. He refused to feel the echoes of the past, refused to think that the last time he had done this he had been fourteen, he had been with—</p><p><em>No. </em>This was new. He would make it new.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Damen’s breath was shaky.</p><p>“What am I doing? You are not very observant.”</p><p>“You’re not yourself,” said Damen. “And even if you were, you don’t do anything without a dozen motives.”</p><p>For a moment, Laurent froze, arrested by the weight of the statement. He heard the bitterness in his own soft words. “Don’t I? I must want something.”</p><p><em>I want this, </em>he did not say, <em>and I cannot stop wanting it—I need to take it—I need to control it—</em></p><p>In his own mind, the thoughts fractured, slipping through his fingers like sand. There was only the unfaltering truth that he <em>wanted, </em>and the undeniable urge to make the wanting something that his uncle could not touch.</p><p>“Laurent,” Damen said is name as if it was something that stole all the breath from his lungs.</p><p>“You take liberties,” said Laurent. “I never gave you permission to call me by my name.”</p><p>“Your Highness,” said Damen, and the words had a sharpness that restored some piece of order. What had happened between them, on the balcony—they would see it through, but Laurent would set the conditions. He would not allow himself to become—swept up—in the desperate need that stretched between them. Beneath his fingers, Damen closed his eyes. “I don’t think you want me. I think you just want me to feel this.”</p><p>“Then, feel it,” said Laurent.</p><p>And slid his hand inside Damen’s open jacket, past his shirt, to his stomach.</p><p>Damen’s skin was hot and alive as fire, heartbeat pounding through his entire body. His breath shuddered out of him as Laurent’s touch skimmed across his navel and slid lower. The bedding was rumpled and disturbed around them, Laurent’s knees and other hand like pins in the silk, holding Damen down. The jacket was discarded, the shirt half off him. Laurent’s throat felt dry as he moved his hand to the laces between Damen’s legs, which parted, obediently.</p><p>Damen’s eyes found his face, gazing up with heavy-lidded ardor. Laurent held himself carefully, aware of his own breathing, controlling scrupulously the flood of heat that swept through him. He would not let himself become undone. He tore himself out of the intensity of Damen’s gaze and allowed his eyes to follow the path of his hand.</p><p>“I see you are everywhere in proportion.”</p><p>Damen said, “You’ve seen me roused before.”</p><p>“And I remember what you like.”</p><p>Laurent closed a fist around the head, and slid his thumb over the slit, pushing down into it a little.</p><p>Damen’s whole body curved. Laurent’s heart felt as if it were trying to run away. He leaned in, let his thumb delineate a small, wet circle.</p><p>“You liked this too, with Ancel.”</p><p>“That wasn’t Ancel,” said Damen, the words raw with honesty, “That was all you, and you know it.”</p><p>Damen’s entire body trembled with tension. Laurent’s heart leapt, unsteadily, as he lifted his hands, reaching up. He remembered the heat of that touch, the brush of gentle fingers against the nape of his neck. There was a spike of panic—he said, quickly, “No.” Damen listened, hands falling back onto the silk, and for a moment Laurent was breathless.</p><p>“You know, Ancel used his mouth,” Damen said, fingers twisting impotently in silk, as if trying to prevent himself from losing control over his body entirely, straining to remain still against the sheets.</p><p>“I don’t think I need to,” said Laurent.</p><p>He felt the reaction to the words, to the slow rise and fall of his hand. He moved carefully, watching the fervid responses across Damen’s body—the sharp intake of breath, the instinctive tightening of muscles, the white-knuckled fists in the silk. Laurent held himself carefully separate, body rigid with tension—yet he could feel the desire coiled inside himself, responding, connecting them, in the shared heat between their bodies.</p><p>He could see it rising, in the way Damen’s mouth fell open, the way his eyes screwed shut, as if fighting the response. He lifted one arm, searching for resistant purchase in the silks above his head—unthinkingly, Laurent stopped him, grasping the wrist and pushing the hand back down into the sheets, insistent and commanding. He felt a rush of heady, unfamiliar control that sent a spike of heat through his body. Damen opened his eyes at the movement; his gaze found Laurent’s, and suddenly—as if that was enough—he was lost. His voice was a broken moan, something that came from deep within his chest, as his body curved, pulsing with heat. His head was thrown back, pressed into the bedding, but his eyes remained locked on Laurent’s, and the intensity in the gaze was overwhelming. Laurent found that he could not look away, heart thundering behind his ribcage. His own body felt dizzy, unsteady with desire.</p><p>He repressed it, pulling back, feeling as if he might break apart. He tried desperately to control his own breathing; beneath him, Damen was panting.</p><p>Laurent said, “Adequate.”</p><p>Breathing roughened, still trembling with climax, Damen was pushing up, levering his weight onto one arm. He caught Laurent’s wrist, fingers circling around the bone, before Laurent could rise from the bed.</p><p>Damen said, “Kiss me.”</p><p>His voice was husky with pleasure; his skin was flushed, cheeks pink in the lamplight. He had pushed himself up, so that his body made a curve, the planes of his abdomen shifting. Laurent’s gaze splayed out instinctively over him, then lifted to meet his eyes. They were heavy-lidded with desire.</p><p>The grip on his wrist was firm, arresting, but not immobilizing. The fingers were warm and loose; there was the promise that if Laurent wanted to tear himself away, he could. Laurent could feel the urge to flee pressing against him, a heavy weight—a door behind which lay the past, whose fists he could hear pounding in the back of his mind. There was a boyish sort of panic, a fear that came with inexperience.</p><p>“Kiss me,” Damen said, again.</p><p>Laurent held himself carefully in place, battling back the torrent of emotion. Kissing was intimate; it was new. It was not something he had been taught. He could count every kiss he’d had on one hand: once, in tall grass, with a boy whose name he could not remember. Once, on a balcony, with the scent of jasmine in the air. Once, under the summer stars, on the battlements of a great fort. His gaze dropped to Damen’s mouth.</p><p>It felt different, here, in the warmth of a bed, with the raw desire still hot between them. As if to do this would be to transgress into a sort of closeness that was not entirely within his control. Yet he leaned forward, and Damen closed his eyes, and held himself very still. Laurent kissed him carefully, unsure of himself, dizzy with the heat of breath against his lips. He closed his eyes; he felt his lips part, slightly.</p><p>Damen drew back, and Laurent’s eyes came open. He felt the danger of the moment, as if some part of himself had been stripped away. Their eyes met, and the intimacy of it was raw, all pretense burned away by the intensity of Damen’s gaze. And then Damen was leaning in slowly, tilting Laurent’s jaw with his fingers, and Laurent was letting him.</p><p>He was not able to suppress his surprise as Damen kissed him softly on the neck. For a moment, Laurent was frozen, attempting to translate this action into something he knew. But then Damen’s mouth found the juncture of jaw and neck, and the hot press of lips and tongue sent sparks down Laurent’s spine as his body responded, unconsciously.</p><p>This time when Damen drew back, neither of them broke fully from the other. He lifted his other hand to brush Laurent’s cheek, slide fingers into his hair, staring with a sort of wondering adoration that made Laurent’s heart ache. Then he took Laurent’s head gently in his hands and kissed him, long, slow and deep. Laurent found himself consumed with the need for more, lips parting as his mouth opened, unwilling to draw away for breath. He ran his tongue over Damen’s bottom lip and felt himself flush as Damen answered, sliding his own tongue into Laurent’s mouth.</p><p>They were kissing. It was not like anything Laurent had experienced before, and some frightened piece of his mind was breathless with panic at the newness of it, the inability to map the experience onto anything known. Yet there was also exhilaration at the discovery of this private experience, something that belonged only to who he was in that moment. He could feel the new ways in which desire moved through him.</p><p>Damen drew his hand down Laurent’s body, over the raised gathers of the jacket. Laurent realized that he was still fully clothed; it was incongruent with his racing heart, with the way he felt utterly, irrevocably exposed. Beneath him, Damen was naked. Laurent’s fingers pressed into the bare skin of his shoulders.</p><p>He felt his stomach turn over as Damen lifted his fingers to the tie that closed his collar. He thought of all the nights they had done this, the repetitive motions, the intricate fastenings loosened, carefully. Damen’s fingers were persistent, tugging at the lacings, and Laurent shivered with the drag of cloth against his skin. He felt the opening widen, exposing his collarbone, felt the heat of Damen’s hands, hovering there.</p><p>They were breathing in tandem. Laurent held himself very still. Damen pushed the jacket open, and he allowed it, chest rising and falling under the thin white shirt. Damen smoothed his hands down the lines of the shirt, and then, parting, opened it.</p><p>He stared down at Laurent’s chest, at the flush spreading across his pale skin, at the evidence of arousal. A small, gratified smile crossed Damen’s face. He lifted his eyes to Laurent’s, and there was something unexpectedly playful in the gaze.</p><p>Laurent said, “Did you think I was made of stone?”</p><p>Damen leaned towards him, pressing their foreheads together, brushing his knuckles across Laurent’s cheek in an unthinking caress. “Nothing you don’t want.”</p><p>Emotion threatened to overwhelm; Laurent’s chest felt tight. He bit back the surge of affection, cooling his voice instead.</p><p>“You think I don’t want it?”</p><p>He raised a brow, challenging. Damen placed a hand deliberately against his shoulder, pushing him back onto the sheets.</p><p>They were gazing at one another. Damen hovered above him, arms braced against the bed, muscles across back and chest pulled taught. His eyes moved slowly over Laurent’s body with a heated intensity that made Laurent swallow, hard. For a moment, he closed his eyes, as if repressing some urge.</p><p>Damen opened his eyes, and Laurent lifted a hand to lay idly above his head, gazing up at him through lowered lashes. “Like being on top, do you?”</p><p>“Yes.” Said Damen, and the word came out roughened by desire. As if to punctuate the statement, he drew a hand down over Laurent’s stomach, which flexed, involuntarily, sensitive to the touch. Laurent focused on controlling his breathing as Damen’s fingers reached the faint line of hair, dragging fingertips across it. His fingers stopped, resting on the place where the line disappeared under symmetrical lacing, and Laurent felt overwhelmed with the urge to press into the touch.</p><p>When Damen looked up, Laurent lifted his leg, quickly, placing his boot firmly against Damen’s chest. He pushed, the impetus clearly unexpected, and Damen fell back so that he was sitting between Laurent’s legs. Laurent did not removed his boot from its position, holding Damen in place with it, the firm pressure of the ball of Laurent’s foot an impetuous command.</p><p>There was an unmistakable flare of arousal in Damen’s eyes.</p><p>Laurent said, “Well?”</p><p>It was a directive, not a warning: understanding made its way suddenly across Damen’s features. He put his hand around Laurent’s calf, the other on the heel of the boot, and pulled it off.</p><p>As the boot hit the floor on the side of the bed, Laurent drew back his foot and replaced it with the other. It came off as deliberately as the first.</p><p>Laurent’s breathing was shallow with his efforts to control it; he held himself carefully in place. His body was splitting with tension, with competing desires. He wanted Damen’s touch so badly that he felt he might be sick with it; yet he could not subdue entirely the piece of himself that was repulsed by his own need.</p><p>Damen gazed at him, and there was tension, too, in his body—but it was the tension of physicality repressed, of an effort at restraint, as he searched Laurent’s face and attempted to decipher what he found there.</p><p>And then they were kissing again, and Damen was touching him as if he could not stop himself, as if he wanted nothing more than to slide his hands slowly over Laurent’s skin, as if he was consumed with the need to memorize every hard line and soft curve of Laurent’s body. There was an interval of touching, and Damen kissed him softer, sweeter. His fingers made their way again to the ties beneath Laurent’s stomach, pushing between lacing and fabric, tugging slowly at the fastenings. Laurent found for a moment that he was unable to breathe.</p><p>Suddenly, in a rush, Damen pushed away and down. Laurent half-followed, hazily pushing up on one arm, uncertain about what was causing Damen to draw away. And then Damen curled his fingers and pulled the fabric down to mid-thigh, then further.</p><p>He tugged the pants down and off, smoothed his hand up Laurent’s thigh in a touch that caused the muscles to involuntarily flex. Reaching the juncture between leg and hip, he thumbed it, and Laurent’s pulse roared in his ears. Damen was staring at him with a sort of hunger that made his heartbeat stutter. He reached out, touching carefully, and Laurent realized, suddenly, what he intended.</p><p>Laurent had hitched up, his jacket and shirt pushed down to his elbows, holding his arms half-restrained behind him. Wordless panic was a knot in his stomach.</p><p>“I am not going to reciprocate.” <em>Not that,</em> came the childish panic,<em> I don’t want to do that.</em></p><p>Damen looked up. “What?”</p><p>Laurent said, “I am not going to do that to you.”</p><p>“And so?”</p><p>“Do you want me to suck your cock?” said Laurent, precisely. “Because I don’t plan to. If you are proceeding on the expectation of reciprocity, then you had best be forewarned that—”</p><p>But before he could complete the sentence, Damen leaned forward and applied his mouth.</p><p>The sensation of it was overwhelming. Laurent let out a soft shocked sound, and his body reformed around the place where Damen was giving his attention. Damen held Laurent in place, hands to hips, and Laurent could not stop himself from shifting helplessly as his body responded to pleasure. He felt dizzy with shock that Damen would do this—willingly, that he would <em>want </em>to do this. He struggled desperately to regain control over his body, to even out his breathing.</p><p>Laurent could feel, in the heady spin of desire, that he was on the edge of control. He felt the body’s need to give itself over to Damen’s hands, to his mouth, to the things he was doing with his tongue—Laurent had never received this before, had never been offered this, and in the shock of pleasure it was difficult to control his thoughts. He felt the past pressing hard against the present, the way this act tangled itself in memories that he tried, desperately, to stave off.</p><p>Because this—this was submission, this was something unwanted, something coerced or forced. His mind felt as if it might break open as he tried to reform his understanding, to understand it as part of desire, <em>this </em>desire, this moment, with Damen. He could feel the tension in his stomach, the faint trembling in his thighs, as the heat in his body coalesced, building to one focused point.</p><p>Yet he could not stop his body from locking down, the tension and fear of the past too close, so that he held himself in a grip of iron control. He turned his head away from Damen, nausea spilling through his gut, and closed his eyes. His hands were clawed fists at his sides. The pleasure was overtaken by panic, wordless and senseless, that he was unable to repress.</p><p>Damen drew off and pushed himself up. Laurent opened his eyes, and found Damen staring at him, searching his face. There was no condemnation in the gaze—only a helpless quest for understanding.</p><p>After a long moment Laurent said, with painful honesty, “I…find it difficult to let go of control.”</p><p>“No kidding,” said Damen.</p><p>There was a drawn-out pause. He forced himself to say it, wrapping his mouth around the words, wrenching the fear from inside himself to place it here, in the space between them: “You want to take me, as a man takes a boy.”</p><p>“As a man takes a man,” said Damen. “I want to take pleasure in you, and to please your body with mine.”</p><p>Laurent wanted, badly, to believe it. He tried to make himself believe it.</p><p>There was nothing but soft honesty in Damen’s voice. “I want to come inside you.” The words rose, as if he could not stop them. “I want you to come in my arms.”</p><p>“You make it sound simple.”</p><p>“It is simple.”</p><p>Laurent’s jaw tightened. He wanted—to believe it was possible. Yet there had only ever been, in the exchange of bodies, the question of who could take more. Memories crowded his head, all the times this had been used against him—<em>you like it, see? You want this, don’t you…</em></p><p>“Simpler to play the man than to roll over, I venture.”</p><p>“Then tell me your own pleasure. Do you think I’m just going to flip you over and mount?”</p><p><em>Yes. </em>Laurent reacted, against his will, to the words, and Damen realized it before it could be repressed, like something tangible transmitted through the air.</p><p>He said, “Is that what you want?”</p><p>The words fell into a stillness between them. Laurent’s breath was shallow in his chest, his cheeks hot. He closed his eyes, struggling to regain control. <em>I don’t know what I want, </em>he did not say, <em>I don’t know if I want what I want. I’m afraid of what I want, I’m sick with what I want, </em>the thoughts were a torrent, and he searched for any coherence among them.</p><p>“I want,” he heard himself say, “I want it to be simple.”</p><p>“Turn over,” said Damen.</p><p>The words rose up from within him, a low, soft command, full of surety. Laurent closed his eyes, washed in the overwhelming conflict of everything he desired.</p><p>
  <em>Make it simple. I want it to be simple. </em>
</p><p>It was impossible, he knew. Things between them could never be simple. Yet he forced the past out of his mind—forced the future away, too. He could feel all the pieces of himself that wanted to flee as he trapped himself in this moment, forced himself, painfully, to think of nothing other than the heat between their bodies and the beat of his own heart.</p><p>In one smooth, practiced motion, Laurent turned onto his stomach, yielding himself to Damen.</p><p>For a moment, Damen’s shock was a palpable thing in the air around them. The hesitation was heavy, a moment in which Laurent could feel the painful ache of desire.</p><p>And then Damen drew his hand softly up Laurent’s side, and Laurent’s breathing went uneven. It took everything in him to remain where he was, to stop himself from slipping away into the past.</p><p>“You’re so tense. Are you sure you’ve done this before?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Laurent. His voice was strained—<em>don’t make me think about it, please, don’t make me think.</em></p><p>“This,” Damen persisted, placing his hand where it made his meaning explicit.</p><p>“Yes,” said Laurent.</p><p>“But—wasn’t it—”</p><p>“Will you <em>stop talking about it</em>.”</p><p>The words were ground out. Damen was in the process of smoothing his hand up Laurent’s back, gentling his nape, kissing it, his head bent over it. He pulled away at the ragged sound of Laurent’s voice. Gently but firmly, he pushed Laurent back over, and looked down at him.</p><p>Laurent could feel his own breathing, heavy in his chest. Damen didn’t speak, only stared at him, searching. For a moment, there was silence in which their breaths were the only sound. Laurent’s felt the want like hunger, like something with teeth.</p><p>“Contrary, aren’t you,” said Damen softly, thumbing over Laurent’s cheek.</p><p>“Fuck me,” said Laurent.</p><p>“I want to,” said Damen. “Can you let me?”</p><p>It was almost too much. Laurent closed his eyes, a muscle sliding in his jaw. He had not expected—this. The tenderness, the gentle coaxing for clarification, for admission—the insistence that Laurent make clear to Damen what he wanted. That he admit it to himself, to them both. Part of him wanted it torn from him, felt it would be easier than the terrifying vulnerability that came with facing fully the nature of his own desire—of not only facing it, but communicating it, like a form of surrender.</p><p>“I <em>am </em>letting you,” he forced the words out. “Will you get on with it?”</p><p>He opened his eyes and met Damen’s gaze, which was all pupil and burning heat. Laurent flushed, waiting in the silence that opened up around his words. He felt like a man stripped of his armor, facing something unknown, unsure if it would kill him. The control he had held so carefully before had evaporated, like dew under the summer sun, and he felt himself now almost completely unwound in the silk sheets.</p><p>Damen did not answer, except to slide his hand up the length of Laurent’s arm where it lay outflung above his head. Catching hold of Laurent’s hand, he pushed it down, pressed their palms into one another.</p><p>The kiss was slow and deliberate. Laurent could not stop the trembling in his body, opening his mouth dizzily. He realized that Damen’s hands, against his skin, were trembling also. When Damen drew back it was only far enough to find Laurent’s gaze again, seeking the answer to some wordless question. Laurent gave it, emotion spread clearly across his face, unable to manage the hard repression, like a man disarmed. He pressed a glass phial into Damen’s hand.</p><p>Damen’s breath caught in his throat. His eyes remained locked on Laurent’s, as if unable to look away, and Lauren was not entirely sure in that moment who had been captured, only that escape seemed impossible. A finger slid inside. Laurent braced himself against the past, forced himself to remain inside his body. Damen moved it back and forward, slowly, and Laurent could not hide the response. It was intensely private. Laurent could feel his body beginning to give, heartbeat stuttering, lungs dragging at air. He had never allowed himself to imagine this; even tonight, had never thought he might surrender to this willingly. The force of his desire felt incongruent to the reality of it; a violent, destructive impulse, a raging fire, that was met with sweet sensuality.</p><p>He could not fight back entirely the small, helpless movements as he became lost in it, the slide of oil, the persistent pressure. Above him, Damen looked at if he too was unraveling, curls damp with sweat, expression broken. They were kissing, now, slow, intimate kisses, their bodies in full alignment, Laurent’s arms twining around Damen’s neck. Damen slid his free arm beneath Laurent, palm traveling over the flexing incurvations of his back. Laurent drew up one of his legs, felt the slide of hip and abdomen against his inner thigh as he pressed his heel into the small of Damen’s back.</p><p>He felt splintered, mind spinning away from itself. For years, the body had been an enemy, a battlefield abandoned after war—a place where blood soaked into the earth and bones were buried, too close to the surface. Yet he found himself returning, now, to this place, subsumed in the physicality of this urgent need to bring Damen closer. Above him, Damen’s eyes closed.</p><p>“I need to be inside you,” he said, and it came out raw with desire and the effort of restraint.</p><p>There was a moment of ardent struggle as the ghost of some past self came alive inside him, screaming and kicking. Laurent's body surged with adrenaline, responding as if to a threat, and he grappled with the instinct to push himself away, to close himself off. It was a brutal exchange, suffocating one piece of himself that another might breathe. He said, “Yes.”</p><p>Damen opened his eyes. He was staring at Laurent as if this was the only thing he had ever wanted—as if, in the heat of it, in the intimacy, in every place where skin met skin, he was witnessing the creation of some new reality that he had never imagined might exist. Laurent felt as if the entire world might shatter, yet he could not bring himself to think of anything but the slow press forward as their bodies connected.</p><p>Laurent cried out, voice released from some cage whose creation he had not realized until this moment. His body felt remade, his own responses alien as he shuddered around the heat and the pressure of it. He felt himself moving, felt the heat spreading through every piece of himself. He closed his eyes, the way men close their eyes when faced with the full light of the sun.</p><p>There was no past left within him, no past left between them. Laurent found he could do nothing but exist, purely, in this moment.</p><p>He gasped for breath. He felt his own body moving, instinctively, with every slow, shallow thrust, absorbing the slow push and drag, the inescapable build of pressure. Around him, Damen’s body was all unyielding planes; Laurent could feel, in the tension, that he was holding himself back. The carefulness of the movements made his heart ache, even as the pleasure coiled inside him began to spiral out. <em>Nothing you don’t want. </em></p><p>“Laurent,” Damen’s voice was a broken moan. The sound moved through him, setting every nerve in his body aflame.</p><p>The fear bled away, until there was nothing left but the scorching heat. Laurent, who had braced himself for pain, for the jagged knife of the past, for the sensation he had learned, as boy, to expect, found himself overwhelmed when it did not come. When, instead, in this new body, there was pleasure so intense he felt gutted, hollowed out and remade. He had not realized it could be like this.</p><p><em>More, </em>was the overwhelming drive, and he surrendered to it. He felt himself surrounded by it, surrounded by Damen, whose arms wound around his chest, whose lips pressed into his neck, as if this impossible closeness was still not enough.</p><p>“Laurent,” Damen said, and he was all the way inside, each thrust desperate, their bodies moving as one.</p><p>Laurent’s arms were shaking, elbows braced on the bed, hands fisted in the sheets. The full weight of Damen’s body was on him, the full length moving inside, and it was pleasure as he had never experienced it, close and hot and breathless. He could hear the broken sounds that slipped from his own throat as the pressure hit again and again at a spot that made his entire body feel as if it might break.</p><p>It was as if everything that had ever been was burned away. Laurent found he could hold on to nothing, except that he was here, connected, with Damen, and it was something entirely new, entirely untouched, private and pure in this single moment. In the flood of sensation, he forgot every piece of the past.</p><p>“<em>I can’t—I have to—” </em>Damen was speaking, the words robbed of breath, escaping in Akielon. Laurent felt himself answer without realizing, the words an instinct that curled up from someplace deep inside him as he said, “<em>Yes, please, there, yes—” </em></p><p>The world came apart as his body jerked, the cresting wave of pleasure so intense that he felt lost to it, all thought burned from his mind by the white-hot flame. He felt, distantly, the slight movement as Damen began to pull back, heard his own voice, raw and scraping its way out of his throat—<em>stay—</em>and was lost once more as Damen obeyed the broken command, and emptied himself inside.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter Twenty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warning for references to child abuse + suicide</p><p>Also this is the head-in-a-bag chapter. So...warning for general gross-ness + death</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Laurent woke slowly, languorously, allowing sleep to slide away at a leisurely pace. He woke to the sensation of enveloping heat, warm skin pressed against him. There was an arm wrapped around his back, protectively, and his cheek was pressed into the juncture of shoulder and neck. The intimate contact would have made his skin crawl, except that he remembered as he woke whose arms he was in, and the memories of the previous night were so achingly sweet that he could only smile, shyly, as he opened his eyes.</p><p>Laurent had been told by many different men that he was beautiful, in many different ways. Men told him that he had the sort of body they would give their entire fortunes to possess, the sort of face that made them go hungry with desire. He had learned to see beauty as a sort of currency, something which he might exchange for the purpose of useful transactions, something that—like a man in possession of a heavy coin purse amongst thieves—transformed him, from a young age, into a target for all sorts of wanting.</p><p>But no man had ever looked at him like this. Damen gazed at him like there was something behind the body, like he was looking past skin and bone to the most private depths. He was looking at Laurent as if it were the purest joy in the world, to wake in each other’s arms. The eyes gave with their looking instead of taking. For a breathless moment, Laurent felt beautiful.</p><p>“It’s morning,” said Laurent. “We slept?”</p><p>“We slept,” said Damen.</p><p>They were gazing at one another. There was a childish sense of fear that this was unreal, that he was not truly awake. Damen was like something out of a dream, a young god come to earth, a sunrise in the body of one man. Laurent reached out and touched the plane of his chest. It was smooth and unyielding against his fingertips, warm with blood, pulsing with heartbeat. Light was beginning to filter through the ornamented windows, but Laurent could not bring himself to leave the bed—not yet.</p><p>He found himself leaning closer, hands traveling to touch arms and shoulders, still half-waiting for Damen to dissipate or dissolve under his fingers. But he remained, painfully real, and then they were kissing, slow, fantastic kisses, and the sense of unreality about the touching transformed to something deeper and sweeter. One of Damen’s hands cupped Laurent’s face; the other slid down his back.</p><p>“Your inclination appears to be much as it was last night.”</p><p>Laurent's words were murmured into Damen’s neck, during a necessary interval between kisses in which he addressed his body’s irksome need for air.</p><p>Damen said, “You talk the same in bed,” and the words came out helplessly charmed. Laurent pressed his smile into Damen’s shoulder.</p><p>“Can you think of a better way of putting it?”</p><p>“I want you,” said Damen. The honesty made Laurent’s heart twist.</p><p>“You’ve had me,” he said, lips moving from shoulder back to neck, “Twice. I can still feel the…sensation of it.”</p><p>Laurent shifted, thigh sliding strategically between legs. Damen buried his face in Laurent’s neck and groaned, and there was laughter, too, that sent vibrations shuddering through Laurent’s entire body. He felt happy enough to break.</p><p>“Stop it. You will not be able to walk,” said Damen.</p><p>“I’d welcome the chance to walk,” said Laurent. “I have to ride a horse.”</p><p>“Is it…? I tried to…I wouldn’t—” In his concern, Damen’s words became stilted, and he pulled back slightly.</p><p>“I like the way it feels,” said Laurent. “I liked the way it felt. You’re a generous, giving lover, and I feel—” He broke off, releasing a breath of laughter shaky with nerves. The words had slipped out of him, easy as breathing, as if honesty was something that came naturally between them. He searched for some way to describe, with as much truth as possible, what he felt, but it was so entirely new.</p><p>“I feel like the Vaskian tribe, in the body of one person. I suppose it is often like this?” He bit back the shyness that came as he remembered that night with the Vaskian women, when Damen had collapsed in their tent glowing with pleasure, much the same way as he appeared now.</p><p>“No,” said Damen. “No, it’s—” He broke off, and when Laurent looked up at him his expression was troubled.</p><p>“Does that betray my inexperience?” Laurent felt the flush of self-conscious awareness, and bit it back with dry humor, “You know my reputation. Once every ten years.”</p><p>“I can’t,” said Damen, and there was a sort of earnest longing in his voice that felt incongruent, desperate, “I can’t have this for just one night.”</p><p>There was no answer Laurent could give that would heal the wound of that statement. He had known—they had both known—when he started this last night that it was all they would ever have. It was the only reason it could be allowed. Yet the words twisted their way into his mind, an echo of the feelings he could not bring himself to face.</p><p>Instead: “One night and one morning,” said Laurent. He pushed Damen down onto the bed before he could respond.</p><p>           ***</p><p>After, they lay once more in each other’s arms. Damen smiled down at him drowsily, eyelids low and fluttering. The sunlight broke through the window and danced in tiny shapes across his skin, turning him into something golden, something that belonged to another world. Laurent lay against his chest until the heartbeat slowed, and the breathing became steady.</p><p>He shifted carefully, pulling away slowly so as not to wake Damen. It was a complicated process, untangling their limbs, yet Damen slept soundly. When he had detached himself, Laurent allowed the small extravagance of a moment spent staring down at the man beside him. The furrow between the brows was smoothed, the lips slightly parted, the features peaceful.</p><p>Laurent was assaulted, suddenly, with the memory of a fairystory that his mother had once told him, about a princess who was cursed by a vindictive forest spirit to sleep forever in a bed of flowers. She would never wake, unless a prince could save her with true love’s kiss. One day, a strapping young man battled his way through the traps of the forest spirit to reach the flowerbed where the princess slept. He was the prince of the neighboring kingdom, and he had come to save her. He saw the sleeping princess, and fell in love immediately, enchanted by her beauty. He kissed her, yet she did not stir; she was asleep, and could not love him back.</p><p><em>That’s not fair! </em>Laurent had been a young child at the time, and was full of righteous indignation at the story’s ending, <em>If she can never fall in love, she can never wake up—but she can never wake up if she can’t fall in love!</em></p><p>Queen Hennike had smoothed his hair back with gentle fingers as she closed the book. <em>I’m sorry love, </em>her voice was like rain in spring: heavy and sweet and warm in an unexpected way, <em>but that’s the end. </em></p><p><em>But there’s no point to it! </em>Laurent had protested, <em>Nobody can ever win!</em></p><p><em>That’s just the way of stories, sometimes. </em>His mother’s smile had been gentle as she said it.</p><p>Laurent stared down at Damen’s eyelashes, fluttering lightly, and wondered what he was dreaming of, or if he was dreaming at all.</p><p>For a moment, he allowed himself to imagine a different world—a world in which, after his mother’s death, Akielos had never invaded. A world where instead, two kings overcame their countries’ long-standing feud and extended the olive branch of diplomacy. He imagined vague parties, and meetings between their two courts. He imagined a world where Auguste had never died, where his uncle had never touched him, where he could wake every morning like this: vulnerable and safe and happy. For just a single breath, he closed his eyes and pictured it, although it tore him apart.</p><p>Laurent felt himself splintering as he stood from the bed. Though the summer air outside was balmy with the heat of the rising sun, he shivered. The man from that other world—the self that could afford luxuries such as honesty and pleasure and mornings spent wrapped in someone else’s arms—was left, painfully, behind, a shell that withered and died as Laurent moved away.</p><p>***</p><p>He bathed and dressed in riding leathers. He called for his horse to be saddled and brought to the gate. He instructed servants to clean his rooms thoroughly and, when Damen woke, to see him dressed and sent to a blacksmith for the removal of the collar and cuffs.</p><p>“Give him a horse, and supplies for his journey south. He is to have anything he needs. But ensure that he leaves promptly—do not allow him to delay. Make certain it is clear that he should not expect my return before his departure.”</p><p>The attendant with whom Laurent was speaking confirmed his understanding of the commands. This done, Laurent made his way to the courtyard, where he found a saddled horse waiting. He gave cursory instructions to Guymar, the solider Damen had promoted the previous night, regarding the necessary functions of the fort. And then he left.</p><p>He rode out alone, despite the obvious discomfort of his men, who watched him leave with clear apprehension scrawled across their features. He heard the groaning rattle of the massive gate shutting behind him. The great walls of Ravenel cast a long shadow over the ground.</p><p>Laurent felt the dense bunching of muscle as the horse moved beneath him. He felt the rush of wind as he urged the steed into a gallop. He felt the heat of the summer sun against his face.</p><p>He had not yet determined the length of time that he would dedicate to this ride. A few hours, at least. Damen would be waking soon, if he had not already been woken by the servants sent to clean the rooms. It would take time for him to bathe and dress, more time to remove the gold collar and cuffs. It would take time to meet his escort, and ensure that they were prepared to ride. It would take time to extricate himself from the fort—waiting for that massive gate to rattle its way up and then back down.</p><p>A few hours, and Damen would be gone, disappeared across the border into another world, another life, another man. Whatever they had begun to create last night, it would be abandoned by them both. Laurent felt a gut-wrenching pain as he recalled the way Damen had stared at him when he woke. He forced the memory down, burying it—burying all of it. He refused to turn back. He could not mourn the death of something that had never been given the chance to live—could not mourn for something that had never truly existed.</p><p>Laurent had been allowed one night in that strange, sweet world. It was more than he had ever expected—more than he had known to hope for. Now, he must return to the world he had inhabited for the past seven years: the world of his uncle’s games. Laurent knew that he faced civil war; he would soon be thrust into bloodshed and twisted scheming and poisonous, webbed lies. There was no room for softness, in this world, the real world. As he rode, Laurent hardened himself piece by piece, expelling all lingering remnants of warmth until he was once again entombed in a cold like ice. It shielded him. It made it difficult to breathe.</p><p>***</p><p>He was not entirely sure how long he had been riding. Not long enough.</p><p>He saw them like a spot of blood against the open terrain: a group of men, riding quickly towards Ravenel, dressed all in red. Red—his uncle’s colors.</p><p>Laurent had avoided straying too far from the fort out of caution; yet he had gone far enough, in his attempts to avoid any final meeting between himself and Damen, that he would be hard pressed to reach Ravenel before these men. He was alone, exposed: a single man against a group that looked as if it numbered about twenty. He put his heels to his horse, and made haste.</p><p>He made it, outriding the contingent of the Regent’s men, with little time to spare. There was a burst of activity as the lower gate was opened. He rode into the courtyard, and paused.</p><p>It was full of men. <em>His </em>men, the prince’s guard, the troop he had brought south from Chastillon. They were arrayed in full armor, in immaculate lines. Lazar stood at their head. As Laurent entered, he turned, breaking his gaze from the men on horseback arrayed in front of him. There were seven of them; one was Jord. Another was Damen.</p><p>Of course—<em>of course—</em>the men had wanted to see Damen off. Of course he had won them over with his battlefield prowess, his campfire humor, his easy smile and unfaltering work ethic. Of course they had grown attached to him, and wished to say goodbye. Laurent’s heart was a closed fist.</p><p>He could see, from the range of expressions across the courtyard—mild surprise to outright shock to open confusion to eager curiosity—that he had not been expected to return so soon. This was understandable, given the orders he had administered only a few hours before.</p><p>It did not matter. The reason for his premature entrance to the courtyard would become apparent soon enough.</p><p>He allowed himself only one glance at Damen. Their eyes met; his face was stricken. Laurent tore his gaze away, and drove his horse onward, towards the dais.</p><p>There was activity on the battlements as the Regent’s men were spotted; shouts went up along the lines, and the banner waved its signal. Laurent lifted his hand and gave a signal of his own, acceding to the request for entry.</p><p>The enormous machinery of the gates started to turn, cogs grinding and dark screeching wood with interlocking teeth brought to life with winches and straining human muscle.</p><p>Accompanying it was the cry, “<em>Open the gates</em>!”</p><p>Laurent didn’t dismount, but wheeled his horse at the base of the dais to face what was coming. His heart was pounding with adrenaline; he ignored it. He had no doubt that his uncle was about to reveal his next move, to outline the next set of rules by which they must play.</p><p>They swept into the courtyard in a surge of red. The banners were red, the livery was red, the pennants, the brightwork, the armor was gold and white and red. The blare of the horns was like the sounding of trumpets, and into Ravenel in full panoply came the emissaries of the Regency, like blood from an open wound.</p><p>The gathered soldiers parted for them, and a space opened up between Laurent and his uncle’s men, so that they faced one another along a widening corridor of empty flagstones, with onlookers on either side.</p><p>A hush fell. Laurent held steady, sitting tall and straight-backed on his mount. On the faces of his men was the hostility that the Regency had always engendered, now magnified. On the faces of the inhabitants of the fort the reactions were more varied: surprise, careful neutrality, devouring curiosity.</p><p>Counting them now, there were twenty-five Regent’s men: a herald and two dozen soldiers. Laurent, opposing them on horseback, was alone. He lifted his chin arrogantly, though his heart was racing.</p><p>“The King of Vere sends a message,” said the herald.</p><p>His voice, trained to carry, could be heard the full length of the courtyard, by each of the gathered men and women. He spoke:</p><p>“The pretender prince is in traitorous conspiracy with Akielos, wherefore he has given over Veretian villages to slaughter, and has killed Veretian border lords. He is therefore summarily expelled from the succession, and charged with the crime of treason against his own people. Any authority he has hitherto claimed over the lands of Vere or the protectorate of Acquitart is now void. The reward for his delivery to justice is generous, and will be administered as swiftly as the punishment against any man who shelters him. So says the King.”</p><p>It was strange, the effect that title had on him. In the split-second when he first heard it, Laurent thought of his father. The cold realization that his uncle was now claiming his father’s title—the title that should have been Auguste’s, the title that, by right and misfortune, would soon belong to him—felt extraordinarily similar to being punched in the gut. For a moment, there was silence in the courtyard.</p><p>“But there is no King,” said Laurent, “in Vere.” His voice carried too. “The King my father is dead.” He said, remaining carefully calm, “Speak the name of the man who profanes his title.”</p><p>“The King,” said the herald, “your uncle.”</p><p>After the initial shock, it was really no more than he had expected. He had been prepared for something like this.</p><p>“My uncle insults his family. He uses a title that belonged to my father—that should have passed to my brother—and that runs now in my blood. Do you think I will let this insult stand?”</p><p>The herald spoke again by rote: “The King is a man of honor. He offers you one chance for honest battle. If your brother’s blood is truly in your veins, you will meet him on the field at Charcy three days hence. There you may try to prevail with your Patran troops against good Veretian men.”</p><p>It was ridiculous, a farce. One chance for honest battle? Laurent had every intention of gathering any army—there would be more than one opportunity to fight. He would be a fool to go now, to allow the Regent to dictate the circumstances of their war. With Ravenel and all its men, Laurent had, for the first time, some ability to alter the rules of their game.</p><p>“Fight him I will, but not at the time and place of his choosing.”</p><p>“And is that your final answer?”</p><p>“It is.”</p><p>“In that case, there is a personal message from uncle to nephew.”</p><p>Laurent braced himself. He had expected this, of course. His uncle would never extend an offer only to see it rejected—there was always some contingency. It would be a deeply private insult, something meant to shock Laurent, enrage him, so that his emotions led him into whatever trap his uncle had set at Charcy.</p><p>It would not work, he told himself, watching the herald nod to a solider. The man unhooked from his saddle a grimy, bloodstained cloth bag.</p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>There was nothing—<em>nothing</em> the Regent could do to force Laurent into giving up his advantage at Ravenel. The soldier raised the bloodstained bag aloft, and Laurent told himself that no matter the contents, he would not be swayed. He was strong enough to stand his ground. He was smart enough to view the situation unclouded by emotion. The herald said:</p><p>“This one pleaded for you. He tried to stand for the wrong side. He suffered the fate of any man who sides with the pretender prince against the King.”</p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>The soldier pulled the bag away from the severed head.</p><p>
  <em>Not this.</em>
</p><p>It was a fortnight’s hard ride, in hot weather. The skin had lost all the freshness that youth had once lent it.</p><p>
  <em>Not him.</em>
</p><p>The blue eyes, always the best feature, were gone. But his tumbled brown hair was dressed with star-like pearls, and from the shape of his face, you could see that he had been beautiful.</p><p>
  <em>Please, not him.</em>
</p><p>Laurent remembered the day they had first met. He had been frightened, and too stubborn to admit it. At only ten years old, his youth was sickening, blue eyes watery with a sort of naïve innocence that quickly disappeared. <em>When do I get to see mother again, </em>he’d asked, in a very small, very unsteady voice.</p><p>
  <em>Please, please, not—</em>
</p><p>He remembered those first few months, how they had hardly spoken. Laurent had watched as he was covered in jewels and paint, as that trembling lip he’d had when he’d first arrived stiffened, as he was pampered and fed and filled with the Regent’s poison. Laurent was on the cusp of seventeen when he arrived; it had been a little over two years since that last ride to Chastillon. In that time, there had been three others.</p><p>
  <em>You can’t keep doing this, where does it end—</em>
</p><p>He had just turned eleven when Laurent found him, one evening, in the garden. It was not an intentional meeting; he scrubbed tears from his face when Laurent rounded the corner. He was sitting on a small stone bench tucked between two hedges. It was situated such that, from all angles but one, it was hidden from view. The little bench was one of Laurent’s favorite spots, a place where he could disappear behind the twining shrubbery and its green leaves.</p><p>He had looked up petulantly and said <em>what do you want </em>with his best imitation of the Regent’s sneer. Laurent had blinked, surprised. He had seen the tears. He had seen the way the boy was sitting.</p><p>Laurent had recovered quickly. <em>I only came to sit and read, but I see that I would be in unpleasant company if I were to remain here. You’ll have to excuse me. </em>He had turned, and made to leave—but he heard the small hiccup that came from behind him, and the quiet sniffling.</p><p>Laurent had paused, back still turned. Then: <em>Learn to use your mouth.</em></p><p>
  <em>What?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If you’re good enough with your mouth, he’ll do the other things less.</em>
</p><p>He wasn’t entirely sure what drove him to say it. He didn’t linger or wait for a response, only left without looking back. They’d never spoken about, in all the years that came after.</p><p>
  <em>Nicaise.</em>
</p><p>There was a nauseating wave of emotion. Laurent absorbed it, repressed it, forced himself not to react. His horse, sensing his tension, moved in place, a sharp, jittery burst, before Laurent brought it, too, under hard control.</p><p>The herald still held his gruesome trophy. Laurent forced himself to take in the rotting flesh, the hollow caves of the eye sockets, the slack jaw.</p><p>“My uncle has killed his catamite,” he said. “As a message to us. And what is the message?” He made sure that his voice carried.</p><p>“That his favor cannot be trusted? That even the boys in his bed see how false is his claim to the throne? Or that his hold on power is so flimsy that he fears the words of a bought child whore?”</p><p>
  <em>Nicaise—not Nicaise—</em>
</p><p>“Let him come to Charcy, with his hithertos and his wherefores, and there he will find me, and with all the might of my kingdom I will scourge him from the field.”</p><p>
  <em>Not Nicaise, he was supposed to live—</em>
</p><p>“And if you want a personal message,” said Laurent, “You can tell my uncle boykiller that he can cut the head off every child from here to the capital. It won’t make him into a king, it will simply mean he has no one left to fuck.”</p><p>Laurent wheeled his horse, and Damen was there, facing him, as the Regent’s emissaries, dismissed, moved out, and the men and women in the courtyard milled, agog with the shock of what they had seen and heard.</p><p>For a moment they faced each other. Damen’s face was all horrified concern, brow furrowed, eyes searching. Hatred welled up inside Laurent, bursting from the raging torrent of emotion. Damen was supposed to be gone. That was the deal: one night, nothing more. Laurent could not have the boundaries of these separate worlds bleeding together, could not stomach the jagged scrape of one’s edges against the other.</p><p>“You’ve outstayed your welcome,” said Laurent. His voice was tight in his chest.</p><p>“Don’t do this. If you ride to meet your uncle unprepared you will lose everything you’ve fought for.” Damen’s voice matched his face: earnest and worried. He put the situation bluntly, as he was prone to do. Still, it was nothing Laurent had not already considered.</p><p>“But I won’t be unprepared. Pretty little Aimeric is going to give up everything he knows, and when I’ve wrung every last word out of him maybe I’ll send what’s left to my uncle.”</p><p>Damen opened his mouth to speak, but Laurent cut him off in a whiplash order to Damen’s escort: “I told you to get him out of here.” And he put his heels in his horse, and drove it past Damen’s, up the steps to the dais, where he dismounted in one practiced motion, and headed in the direction of Aimeric’s rooms.</p><p>He made his way through the fort in a haze of violent anger. He wanted to hurt something; he wanted to taste blood. He could not bring himself to care about the consequences just now. Part of him—the part most shadowed in rage—hoped that Aimeric would resist, just for the excuse to gut him. Visions of Nicaise’s putrefied head swam in Laurent’s mind; guilt was a weight that threatened to crush him. He gave his anger free rein to devour it, to devour all other emotion, until he was hollowed out and left only with the sharp bone of teeth.</p><p>At the second level of the fort, Aimeric’s guards stepped back without question, allowing Laurent to pass. He shoved open the heavy wooden door and entered.</p><p>The rooms, of course, were beautiful. Aimeric wasn’t a soldier, he was an aristocrat. He was the fourth son of one of the most powerful Veretian border lords, and his rooms matched his station. There was a bed, and a lounging couch, patterned tiles and a high arched window with a second seat cut into it, tumbled with cushions. There was a table on the far side of the room, and Aimeric had been given food, wine, paper and ink. He had even been given a change of clothing. It was a careful arrangement. Where he sat at the table, he no longer wore the dirt-streaked undershirt he’d worn under his armor. He was dressed like a courtier. He had bathed. His hair looked clean.</p><p>Laurent saw all of this. He saw also the broken pane of glass in the bottom left-hand corner of the window, last night’s meat uneaten on the plate, the bed not slept in. His blood went cold.</p><p>The glass that had been removed from the window lay now just outside the reach of Aimeric’s outflung hand. The right side of his face was pressed against the desk—the side that Laurent had struck. He remembered the impact of cheek against knuckle, the satisfying way the bruise had spread across Aimeric’s face, the way his lip had split. Laurent remember dragging his finger through the blood that welled on Aimeric’s pretty mouth.</p><p>There was blood, here, too. It had soaked into Aimeric’s sleeve, had pooled out over the table and the tiled floor, where it had darkened. It had been like this for hours—before the sun had risen. Laurent had seen battle, had seen bloodshed—but this felt somehow different. The blood was so incongruent with its surroundings, with the gentle fall of hair over Aimeric’s brow, with the ornamental pattern woven into the silk of the sheets on the bed, that it seemed impossible. There was so much of it—that it had all come from Aimeric felt ridiculous. He looked so small, slumped over that desk.</p><p>He’d been writing; the paper was not far from the curl of his fingertips. There were only three words on the page, printed neatly, with care.</p><p>Laurent remembered his own words. <em>A middle-aged man’s sloppy seconds.</em></p><p>He thought of the worthlessness that Aimeric would have felt, the confusion when the Regent left. He probably spent years wondering what he had done wrong, why he was undeserving of that love that had once seemed so absolute.</p><p><em>Used goods are not appealing unless they are something worth using. </em>Laurent had said that. It had not even been a full day since he had said that.</p><p>Aimeric would have been elated, thrilled when he received once more the Regent’s attention. He would have done anything—anything to keep that love, anything to capture that attention, anything to be told that he was good, and helpful, and worth something.</p><p>
  <em>I’m sorry Jord.</em>
</p><p>It was the last words Aimeric had written—the last thing he had ever felt: regret. Laurent stared, and the lifeless eyes stared back.</p><p>Aimeric had killed himself.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter Twenty-One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>content warning for vague references to suicide + child abuse</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Laurent heard Damen enter, but did not turn. He was frozen, silent, staring at the bloodied shard of glass.</p><p><em>That’s two, </em>he thought, numbly. He had as good as pressed that sharp edge into Aimeric’s arm himself.</p><p>He turned from the ruined table and said, “Saddle the horses. We ride for Charcy.” As he left Damen moved to stop him, a look of helpless shock painted across his face. Laurent knocked his hand away and pushed past without a single word.</p><p>He would go to Charcy. This single fact burned in his mind, a lifeline, something he clung to desperately. He would fight his uncle, and win. He would prove that even the mindless death, even the deliberate slaughter, even this private, twisting cruelty could not overcome him. He would not allow himself to be overcome.</p><p>Laurent spent the next hour giving brief orders, preparing his men for war. It was a fort-wide undertaking, from the armory to the storehouses. He ordered Aimeric’s room cleaned, the body removed to a smaller cell where it could be prepared for burial. What was left of Nicaise, too, would be buried.</p><p>He was aware of Damen, watching this all unfold, listening to the orders Laurent gave with a disapproving frown. He was aware of him like a thorn in his side, or a stone in his boot—something he intended to remove but which stayed, stubbornly, put. Laurent ignored him. He had a battle to win.</p><p>Charcy lay between Fortaine and the northern trade routes—it was a terrain perfectly positioned for two forces to trap a third. Laurent knew this, knew the Regent intended to trap him, knew the advantage he would sacrifice by leaving Ravenel’s stronghold. It did not matter. He would win, would crush whatever snare had been laid underfoot.</p><p>When it was done—when he had done all he could, for the time being—Laurent retired to his rooms, ensuring that the doors were closed firmly behind him. His men knew where to find him, could call on him if they had questions or were in need of orders—but none came. He was left alone in the quiet space, undisturbed.</p><p>The rooms had been remade and reordered, the table replenished with platters of fruit and pitchers of water and wine. The bed, which that same morning had been a twisted mess of silk and body, appeared untouched and pristine. Looking at it, Laurent felt dizzy. It was impossible that he had lain there, just a few hours before, wrapped in Damen’s arms. It was a memory from another life, belonging to another man.</p><p>He divested himself of the riding leathers, lacing into the severe formality of his prince’s garments. He tugged on the laces himself, with sharp fingers. From outside came the faint sounds of the preparations in the courtyard—the metallic shifting of armor, the whinny of horses, the shouts of men.</p><p>Laurent moved to a desk in one corner, where he retrieved a small bundle of carefully wrapped cloth. He drew out the single earring, watching the sapphires wink in the sunlight. They were brightly, painfully blue, the exact color of Nicaise’s eyes.</p><p>He pressed the jewels into his fist, so that every sharp edge and hard line dug into his skin, imprinting itself on his palm. He found himself drifting to the window, where he could look down at the motion in the courtyard below. As he watched, the contingent of Ravenel prepared itself for war.</p><p>Laurent felt himself thrown, once more, into that cavernous ocean that lived inside him. Thought was impossible; as he stared out the window, he could do nothing but feel himself battered, helplessly, by the waves of emotion that crashed inside him. It was a senseless, brutal sort of drowning. He forced himself to breathe.</p><p>***</p><p>Laurent did not think of Nicaise. He did not think of Aimeric. He did not, once the initial preparations for battle had been set in motion, even think of the Regent.</p><p>Instead, he thought of Auguste.</p><p>It was a disjointed sort of thought, punctuated largely by emotion. He remembered the warmth of his smile, the way his laughter shook his entire body. He thought of the way Auguste would shift his voice, pitching it high or low, when Laurent convinced him to read stories aloud—remembered his horrible imitation of a Patran accent. He thought of that ride to Marlas, when he had seen the great spread of the sea for the first time and Auguste had laughed at his wide-eyed wonder. <em>When we defeat the Akielon barbarians, </em>Auguste had said, <em>we can sneak away on the ride back to Arles. </em>Auguste had tried to describe the feeling of soft sand under bare feet—said it was the closest thing on earth to walking through a cloud.</p><p>More than his father, more than his mother, Laurent wished desperately that Auguste could somehow be with him, now. He felt sure that if Auguste were still alive, he would never have allowed Nicaise to be killed—which was ridiculous, for if Auguste were alive, Laurent would have never met Nicaise at all.</p><p>Laurent heard the doors pushed open behind him, then shut. He did not have to turn to know who had entered the room.</p><p>“Come to say goodbye?”</p><p>Laurent’s voice was cold and hard as stone. There was a pause, in which he turned. Damen was looking at him, eyes flickering from the closed fist to the hard line of the shoulders to the face.</p><p>“I’m sorry. I know what Nicaise meant to you.”</p><p>There was a surge of anger, at that. It was infuriating in its presumption—Damen could not possibly <em>begin</em> to understand what Nicaise had meant to him. Laurent was not sure he understood it himself.</p><p>“He was my uncle’s whore,” said Laurent.</p><p>“He was more than that. You thought of him as—”</p><p>“A brother?” said Laurent. “But I do not have terribly good luck with those.” The words were sharp, a blade that cut them both. He was horribly, agonizingly aware of who he was speaking to. “I hope you are not here for a mawkish display of sentiment. I will throw you out.”</p><p>There was a long silence. They faced each other.</p><p>“Sentiment? No. I wouldn’t expect that,” said Damen. His voice was bitter, brittle. The sounds outside were of orders and metal. “Since you don’t have a Captain left to advise you, I’m here to tell you that you can’t go to Charcy.”</p><p>“I have a Captain. I’ve appointed Enguerran. Is that everything? I have reinforcements arriving tomorrow and I am taking my men to Charcy.” Laurent moved from the window to the table, dismissal unmistakable in his voice. But Damen did not listen.</p><p>“Then you’ll kill them like you killed Nicaise,” he said, “By dragging them into this endless, childish bid of yours for your uncle’s attention that you call a fight.”</p><p>Each word was a physical blow. Laurent felt as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him; for a moment, he struggled for breath. It contained all the ugliness of fear and truth and guilt that he had been trying, desperately, to devour with anger.</p><p>“Get out,” said Laurent. His voice was little more than a whisper.</p><p>“Is the truth so hard to hear?”</p><p>“I said get out.”</p><p>“Or do you claim you’re marching to Charcy for some other reason?”</p><p>“I am fighting for my throne.”</p><p>“Is that what you think? You’ve fooled the men into believing it. You haven’t fooled me. Because this thing between you and your uncle isn’t a fight, is it.”</p><p>Laurent felt the ghost of every touch, every word, from his uncle. His chest was an open, bloody battlefield, his body its own war.</p><p>“I can assure you,” he heard himself say, “it’s a fight.”</p><p>“In a fight, you try to beat your opponent. You don’t scurry to do what he wants. This is about more than Charcy. You’ve never made a single move of your own against your uncle. You let him set the field. You let him make the rules. You play his games like you want to show him you can. Like you’re trying to impress him. Is that it?”</p><p>Laurent was unable to speak, unable to defend himself from the gutting attack. The anger seethed, resentful—for what did Damen know? What did Damen understand? He saw so little, knew so little of the years Laurent spent in hell or purgatory or some mixture of both. That he dared to speak as he did now—</p><p>“You need to beat him at his own game? You want him to see you do it? At the expense of your position and the lives of your men? Are you that desperate for his attention?”</p><p>Laurent recoiled from the words—from the truth that ran like a current through them, that threatened to sweep him away entirely. It was as if Damen had reached past bone and flesh to his heart, had gripped the organ in his fist and dissected it, withdrawing the darkest pieces and displaying them so that Laurent could not look away, could not deny their existence.</p><p>“Well, you have it. Congratulations. You must have loved it that he was obsessed enough with you that he killed his own boy to get at you. You win.”</p><p>Laurent took a step back, as if physical distance might lessen the impact of the speech. He could feel the unsteadiness of his limbs, the nausea churning in his gut. He stared at Damen, unable to look away.</p><p>“You don’t know anything,” Laurent said, voice hollow and cold. “You don’t know anything about me. Or my uncle. You’re so blind. You can’t see what’s—right in front of you.” He forced a laugh, low and mocking. “You want me? You’re my slave?”</p><p>Damen had no right to speak of truths and untruths, when he himself was only ever a lie.</p><p>Laurent watched as he flushed, stared at him as he said, “That’s not going to work.”</p><p>“You’re nothing,” said Laurent, “but a crawling disappointment who let a King’s bastard throw him in chains because he couldn’t keep his mistress happy in bed.” He was filled with the directionless impulse to hurt, to strike out, to force Damen to feel some piece of the pain he was feeling.</p><p>“That’s not,” said Damen, “going to work.”</p><p>“You want to hear the truth about my uncle? I’ll tell you,” said Laurent, as he sifted through everything he might say, sought out the sharpest words, the thing that might leave the deepest, bloodiest wound. “I’ll tell you what you couldn’t stop. What you were too blind to see. You were in chains while Kastor was cutting down your royal family. Kastor and my uncle.”</p><p>He saw the words hit their mark—saw the repressed confusion, the bewilderment that demanded some explanation. Damen said, “What does your uncle have to do with—”</p><p>“Where do you think Kastor got the military support to hold back his brother’s faction? Why do you think the Veretian Ambassador arrived with treaty in hand right after Kastor took the throne?”</p><p>He saw the realization moving in Damen, twisting his features, as he said, “No.”</p><p>Laurent could not stop himself from twisting the knife. “Did you think Theomedes died from natural sickness? All those visits from physicians that only made him sicker?”</p><p>“<em>No,</em>” said Damen. There was a horrified sort of denial in his voice. Laurent knew how it felt, the shift of world, the excruciating truth that family could betray in the deepest, most sacred of ways.</p><p>“You didn’t guess it was Kastor? You poor dumb brute. Kastor killed the King, then took the city with my uncle’s troops. And all my uncle had to do was sit back and watch it happen.”</p><p>Damen could not deny the truth of it, laid out before him, extracted and stripped down and displayed in all its raw, vicious glory. He stared at Laurent with a lost expression that made Laurent’s heart shudder in his chest.</p><p>“<em>Did you know about this</em>?”</p><p>“Know?” said Laurent. Damen was the one who had started this—who had insisted on honesty, every sharp edge of it. If he wanted the truth, Laurent would give it to him. “Everyone knows. I was <em>glad. </em>I just wish I could have seen it happen. I wish I could have seen Damianos when Kastor’s hire-swords came for him. I would have laughed in his face. His father got exactly what he deserved, to die like the animal he was, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it happening. Then again,” said Laurent, “maybe if Theomedes had kept his cock in his wife instead of sticking it in his mistress—”</p><p>That was the last thing he said, because Damen hit him. He drove his fist into Laurent’s jaw with all the force of his weight behind it. Knuckles impacted on flesh and bone and Laurent’s head snapped sideways even as he hit the table behind him hard, sending its contents scattering. Metallic platters crashed against tile, a mess of spilt wine and strewn food. Laurent clutched the table with the arm that he’d flung out instinctively to stop his fall.</p><p>Damen was breathing hard, his hands clenched into fists. His eyes held a thunderstorm, brimming with fury.</p><p>Laurent pushed himself up and returned the gaze with sharp-edged vindication, even as he dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, where his lips were smeared with blood. The iron taste of it grounded him, as did the throbbing in his jaw. He had won, had dragged Damen down from his pedestal, into that ocean of rage where they might drown together. He studied Damen’s face, waiting to see the hatred, the cruel twist of lips, his own desire to hurt reflected back from the other man’s eyes.</p><p>He did not find it. Instead, he watched Damen’s gaze drop from his face to the tiled floor, where the overturned platters had fallen with a crash. In the force of the blow, Laurent’s fist had come undone, the earring spilling like scattered stars from his palm. Damen stared at it, and the storm in his eyes became more downpour than thunder. Laurent felt something untwist in his chest.</p><p>The doors opened; soldiers burst into the room, summoned by the sound. Damen did not turn to look at them, only fixed his eyes on Laurent.</p><p>“Arrest me,” said Damen. “I have raised hands to the Prince.”</p><p>The soldiers hesitated. If it were anyone else, they would have acted immediately—but Damen had been their Captain. He said again, “Do it.”</p><p>The darker-haired soldier stepped forward and gripped Damen’s arm. Laurent watched it happen, and set his jaw.</p><p>“No,” said Laurent. And then, “It was provoked.”</p><p>Another hesitation. It was clear that the two soldiers did not know what to make of what they had walked into. The air of violence was heavy in the room, where their Prince stood in front of a ruined table, with blood welling from his lip.</p><p>“I said let him go.”</p><p>It was a direct order from their Prince, and this time it was obeyed. Damen was released from their hands. Laurent watched the soldiers bow, then leave, closing the doors behind them. Then he transferred his gaze to Damen.</p><p>“Now get out,” Laurent said. He felt exhausted, hardly able to stand. The rage had begun to transform, its voracious appetite held at bay, its teeth no longer gnashing.</p><p>Damen pressed his eyes closed briefly, consumed for a moment in some internal struggle.</p><p>“No,” he said. “You can’t go to Charcy. I need to convince you of that.”</p><p>It was like being stabbed, and withdrawing the blade to place it back in your enemy’s hands. Laurent’s laugh was a strange, breathless sound. “Didn’t you hear anything that I just said to you?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Damen. “You tried to hurt me, and you have. I wish you would see that what you have just done to me is what your uncle is doing to you.”</p><p>It was more than he could bear. He had no energy left for pretense—no energy to fight the desperate need for understanding. “Why,” said Laurent, “do you—do you always—” he stopped himself, unable to finish. <em>Why do you always do the right thing? Why do you always insist on helping me? What do you do with the pain, and the anger, and the hatred? Why are you so </em>good <em>to me?</em></p><p>“I came with you to stop a war,” said Damen. “I came because you were the only thing standing between Akielos and your uncle. It’s you who’ve lost sight of that. You need to fight your uncle on your own terms, not on his.”</p><p>“I <em>can’t.</em>” It was a raw admission. “I can’t <em>think.</em>” The words were torn out of him. In the silence, unable to hide any longer this dark, terrifying truth, he said it again: “I can’t think.”</p><p>“I know,” said Damen.</p><p>He said it softly. Lauren knew, from the way he said it, that he understood everything behind the words, everything Laurent could not bring himself to say aloud.</p><p>Damen knelt, and scooped up the glimmer of Nicaise’s earring from the floor.</p><p>It had been a delicate thing, and well made, a handful of sapphires. Laurent watched him rise, and set it down on the table. They were close enough to touch, but neither reached out.</p><p>After a time, Damen moved back from the place where Laurent leant, fingers curled around the table edge. He drew a breath, made to take another step back.</p><p>“Don’t go,” said Laurent, quietly. It was a different kind of admission, painful in its vulnerability.</p><p>“I’m just clearing my head. I already told my escort I wouldn’t need them until morning,” said Damen.</p><p>The silence that stretched between them was awful, as Damen realized what Laurent was asking him.</p><p>“No. I don’t mean—forever—just—” Laurent broke off. He took a breath, steadying himself, forcing himself to think. “Three days,” he said, firmly, “I can do this alone. I know I can. It’s only that right now I can’t seem to…<em>think</em>, and I can’t…trust anyone else to stand up to me when I’m…like this. If you could give me three days, I—” He forcibly cut himself off. There was no way to finish the sentence that would not carry him to some point from which he could not return.</p><p>“I’ll stay,” said Damen. “Three days. After that, I ride south.”</p><p>Laurent nodded, not trusting himself to speak. After a moment, Damen came back to rest against the table beside him. The presence was steadying, calming. This time the silence was comfortable, an anchor, as Laurent found his way back to himself.</p><p>Eventually, he began to talk, the words precise and quite steady.</p><p>“You’re right. I killed Nicaise when I left it half done. I should have either stayed away from him, or broken his faith in my uncle. I didn’t plan it out, I left it to chance. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t thinking about him like that. I just…I just <em>liked </em>him.” He forced himself to speak without emotion, to release the admission without allowing it to overwhelm him. He did not look at Damen as he said it.</p><p>“I should never have—said that. Nicaise made a choice. He spoke up for you because you were his friend, and that is not something you should regret.”</p><p>“He spoke up for me because he didn’t think my uncle would hurt him. None of them do. They think he loves them. It has the outward semblance of love. At first. But it isn’t love. It’s…fetish. It doesn’t outlast adolescence. The boys themselves are disposable.” He kept his voice neutral, as if commenting on the weather. “He knew that much, deep down. He always was smarter than the others. He knew that when he got too old, he would be replaced.” <em>He was smarter than I was, </em>he did not say, <em>he understood more than I did, at his age. </em></p><p>“Like Aimeric,” said Damen.</p><p>Into the long silence that stretched out between them, Laurent said: “Like Aimeric.”</p><p>He could feel Damen’s gaze on him, studying his face as if trying to solve some difficult puzzle.</p><p>“You liked him.”</p><p>“My uncle cultivated the worst in him. He still had good instincts sometimes. When children are molded that young, it takes time to undo. I thought…”</p><p>Softly, “You thought you could help him.”</p><p> <em>I had to believe I could help him, </em>Laurent thought, but could not speak the words aloud, <em>I needed to know there was some possibility—some chance that I could…salvage him. </em>He kept his expression carefully blank.</p><p>“He was on my side,” said Laurent. “But in the end, the only person on his side was him.”</p><p>Silence stretched out. He thought of Nicaise, ghostly in white, standing in the courtyard at Arles. Laurent thought of the way he’d held the earring, a promise, an olive branch. <em>You’re leaving, </em>Nicaise had said. Laurent remembered his own promise: <em>I’m coming back.</em></p><p>A few more months, and the Regent would have been done with Nicaise. Would have released him, discarded him, moved on to someone younger and fresher and still sweet with innocence. Laurent could have bought out the contract. Nicaise would have cursed him, would have insisted he hated it, would have clung desperately to the mask of arrogance and petulance and haughty nonchalance. But he would have been able to stay. He would have continued to grow, in the palace. He would have had access to books, to schooling, to anything he desired. Laurent felt the hollow ache of knowing that he would never discover, now, what sort of man Nicaise might become.</p><p>He dragged himself away from these thoughts. It did no good to imagine worlds that could never exist. Laurent’s eye caught on a sliver of gold, against Damen’s wrist. He reached out, unthinking, to touch, shifting the fabric of the sleeve, sliding it back slightly. He felt the shock that ran through Damen, the confusion that gave way to something else as they both started down at the gold wrist-cuff. Laurent realized with a painful twist of the heart that Damen must have asked the blacksmith to leave it on.</p><p>“Sentiment?” said Laurent.</p><p>“Something like that.”</p><p>Their eyes met and he could feel the depth of everything exposed between them. A few seconds of silence, a space that lengthened, until Laurent spoke.</p><p>“You should give me the other.”</p><p>He watched the slow spreading flush across Damen’s skin, reddening his cheeks. Around his neck, there was a circle of skin a few shades lighter than the rest, where the slave collar had prevented the touch of the sun.</p><p>“I can’t imagine you’d wear it,” Damen said.</p><p>“To keep. I wouldn’t <em>wear it</em>,” said Laurent, “though I don’t believe your imagination is having any difficulty with the idea.”</p><p>Damen let out a soft, unsteady breath of laughter that sent a shiver down Laurent’s spine. For a while they sat together in comfortable silence. Laurent no longer felt the panicked crush of drowning emotion, instead relaxing his weight back onto his arms, watching Damen thoughtfully. Damen gazed back, untroubled, as if content to simply share this space between them.</p><p>“I should not have told you in the manner I did about Kastor.” Laurent said, quietly.</p><p>Red wine was seeping into the tiles of the floor. Damen paused before asking, as if unsure whether he could stomach the answer:</p><p>“Did you mean what you said? That you were glad.”</p><p>“Yes,” said Laurent. “They killed my family.”</p><p>It was the truth, simple and brutal. He had been viciously, savagely delighted when he learned that King Theomedes would waste away, powerless and poisoned by his bastard son. He had thought it a fitting death for a barbarian king whose warmongering had cost Laurent his family.</p><p>And for Damianos…Laurent had taken sadistic pleasure in imagining it, the betrayal of dying at his brother’s hands. There had been a sense of poetry about it; after all, Damianos had stolen Laurent’s brother away first. That he, too, should experience the gutting loss of family had seemed, at the time, like justice—or at least, something close enough to justice to satiate.</p><p>Laurent had never imagined that there would be another layer to the Regent’s complex web of deception—that Damianos would not fall to the cold bite of steel but instead be wrapped in the heavy weight of gold, turned into a weapon that Laurent’s uncle might use against him.</p><p>He imagined, for the first time, what it might have been like for Damen. Watching his father’s life decay, helpless to stop it. The painful blow of death, followed by the knife of betrayal. He must have trusted his brother deeply, to have failed to see the plot unraveling before him. Laurent tried to imagine what he might do if Auguste had ever betrayed him, had ever hated him enough to wish him dead—and suffered a total failure of the imagination. Auguste would never have hurt him.</p><p>Damen had gone still beside him, lost in a world of thought that Laurent could not begin to understand. There was something like pain in his eyes, which stared distantly at the tiled floor. Laurent cleared his throat.</p><p>“I’ve listened to everything that you said to me. I’m not going to rush off to Charcy with an army. But I still want to fight. Not because my uncle threw down a challenge, but on my own terms, because this is my country. I know that together we can find a way to use Charcy to my advantage. Together we can do what we cannot do apart.”</p><p>Laurent knew, now, what the Regent had intended. He understood all the ways in which Damen was meant to be a weapon. It did not matter. Damen was here, now, standing at his side despite all Laurent’s efforts to push him away.</p><p>“My uncle plans everything,” said Laurent, when Damen did not answer. “He plans for victory and he plans for defeat. It was you who never quite fit…You’ve always been outside of his schemes. For everything that my uncle and Kastor planned,” said Laurent, “they had no idea what they did when they gifted me with you.”</p><p>There was something cold—something like fear, or guilt—in Damen’s expression, which he covered quickly with measured neutrality. Still, Laurent noticed. He was not entirely sure what was moving in Damen’s mind; there was some internal struggle beyond his understanding.</p><p>Laurent stood, alone, after Damen left. He considered his options. Tomorrow, an army of Akielon soldiers would arrive at Ravenel. Laurent was the only one who knew to expect them. He looked at the spot where Damen had stood, and felt the inevitable approach of the past.</p><p>           ***</p><p>The icy self-control was firmly back in place when Laurent came out onto the courtyard dais, armed and armored and ready to ride. In the courtyard, his men were mounted and waiting for him: a hundred and twenty riders.</p><p>The plan had taken shape over a map. Damen had put it simply. “Look at Charcy’s location. Fortaine will be the launching point for troops. Charcy will be Guion’s fight.”</p><p>“Guion and all his other sons,” Laurent had said.</p><p>“The strongest move you can make right now is to take Fortaine. It will give you full control of the south. With Ravenel, Fortaine and Acquitart you’ll hold Vere’s southern trade routes to Akielos as well as to Patras. You already hold the southern routes to Vask, and Fortaine gives you access to a port. You’ll have everything you need to launch a northern campaign.”</p><p>Staring at the map, Laurent saw for the first time the entire scope of this endeavor. Damen connected each piece on the board, demonstrated how a single move could impact so many others. Laurent’s attention had been all on Charcy, and on the man waiting there for him.</p><p>“You were right. I haven’t been thinking about it like this.”</p><p>“Like what?” said Damen.</p><p>“Like war,” said Laurent.</p><p>Now they faced one another on the dais. Damen knew reinforcements would soon be arriving. Laurent had not told him the nature of those reinforcements. He had not asked.</p><p>Damen said, “Are you sure you want to leave your enemy in charge of your fort?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Laurent. He knew it was a dangerous risk—a desperate gambit. Damen spoke to him now as a Veretian commander, a man once enslaved and now set free. But once the fort was washed in the red of Akielos, he would no longer be Damen; he would become Damianos.</p><p>They gazed at one another. It was a public goodbye, in full view of the men. Laurent extended his hand. He did it not, as a prince might, for Damen to kneel and kiss, but as a friend. There was acknowledgment in the gesture, and as Damen took his hand, in front of the men, Laurent held his gaze.</p><p>Words bubbled up on the back of Laurent’s tongue—there were so many things he wanted to say now, here, before everything changed. <em>You are better to me than I have any right to deserve. I trust you; I cannot stop trusting you, though I know it is foolish. You left it on—the wrist-cuff—why did you leave it on? </em></p><p>He could say none of it. Instead, Laurent said, “Take care of my fort, Commander.”</p><p>Damen’s grip tightened slightly on his hand. He looked, for a moment, as if he might speak—but did not. He released his grip slowly, as though it pained him to do so.</p><p>Laurent nodded to his attendant, mounted his horse. Damen said, “A lot depends on timing. We have a rendezvous in two days. I—Don’t be late.”</p><p>“Trust me,” said Laurent, and behind the words was everything he had ever felt on their long journey together. He straightened his horse out with the tug of a rein in the moment before the order was called, and he and his men moved out.</p><p>***</p><p>He thought, as he rode, about how it might happen.</p><p>Leaving with his hundred and twenty men meant only a skeleton force was left at Ravenel. It was enough to repel any serious outside threat, stationed behind the impenetrable walls. But the walls would do no good once the gates were open.</p><p>The men of Ravenel would assume, at first, that they were under attack. They would see the red haze of Akielons and presume it a siege. But Damen, when presented with Laurent’s signet ring, would understand. The pieces would fall into place, and he would command the men to open the gates.</p><p>The Akielon army would swarm into the fort—the skeleton force of Veretian men would be far outnumbered. Perhaps there was a chance that Damen would go unrecognized—but no. Laurent struck that thought from his mind. The reinforcements included the kyros, Nikandros of Delpha. He would recognize his Prince.</p><p>The Veretians would, no doubt, revolt. No one would serve under the man who had killed Auguste. Damen would have to secure the fort by force, using the army Laurent had dropped in his lap. It would be a delicate situation; he would have to do everything right. At the end of it, Laurent would have given his fort—his one primary advantage in this war—to Damianos of Akielos.</p><p>They had decided to split their forces: Laurent, riding out in advance, to take a circuitous route to Charcy where he might take the Regent’s army by surprise. Damen and his reinforcements would launch from Ravenel tomorrow, drawing the Regent out and setting the trap. It was a plan that depended entirely on timing—if Laurent arrived too early, the trap would become obvious. If Laurent arrived too late, Damen and his army would be grossly outnumbered and surrounded by enemies.</p><p>Either way, at the end of it, Laurent would only be trading one enemy for another. His chest felt tight as he imagined what it might be like, to face each other for the first time with the artifice stripped away. He wondered if Damen would keep his word, and ride to Charcy, or if he would simply sit comfortably in the fort Laurent had given him, and allow the Veretian Regent and Prince to tear each other to pieces. It would be the smart thing to do: after all, what should the Akielon Prince care for the internal politics of Vere?</p><p>But it was not the honorable thing to do, and Laurent knew, down to his bones, that Damen would keep his promise.</p><p>They rode into the evening, following the westward path of the setting sun. Laurent thought about past and present, doomed to collide. He thought about his brother, and the man who had killed his brother. He thought about Damen, about every lie and every truth they had ever held between them.</p><p>And then the world turned to steel and blood, and he thought of nothing but the screams of the men dying around him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Book two done!! The longest book in the series--I think this is the biggest writing project I've ever completed.</p><p>Thank you to everyone who's been following this fic; I've been having so much fun reimagining this series from Laurent's perspective! And thank you to everyone who left kudos + comments--I know I don't usually respond but I do read all of them and they really make my day :) </p><p>I'm going to try and get started on Book 3 pretty soon, but (as with this book) my writing schedule might be somewhat erratic. My goal is to keep posting chapters every 1-3 days if I can; I guess I'll see if I'm able to keep it up!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>